


Space Opera

by Mari_and_Su



Category: Cowboy Bebop, Fifth Element (1997), Firefly, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Seihou Bukyou Outlaw Star | Outlaw Star
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Multi, Science Fiction, Wacky Fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 51
Words: 68,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1555466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mari_and_Su/pseuds/Mari_and_Su
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mari and Su go to space. They meet some people you may know along the way. A classy melange of Firefly, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star, with some other spices for flavor. Episodic to start, with arcs and a continuous narrative picking up in the later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Saturday Night's Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su gets in a barfight

"Listen here. This is a two person operation." The first mate slammed her glass down on the bar. "I got her back, she's got mine. We ain't got no room for interlopers, 'specially not of your... distinction." Flicking back her long hair, she smiled at him. "Piss off 'fore you get hurt."

"Aw, c'mon now, little lady," he whined, "that ain't no way to treat a guy who's just tryin' ta help out. 'Sides, two gals like yourselves can't possibly keep a ship properly maintained like I can." She turned to glare at her captain across the bar room, silently cursing the woman as she merely smirked and raised her bourbon glass in the mockery of a toast. Well, that was all well and good, but she wasn't gonna like what happened if this sorry excuse for a mechanic kept at her.

"I said. Piss. Off."

"Look honey," he said, lips too close to her ear, his voice turning slimy, "I just need a quick ride off this rock. I'll make it worth your while. Whatever you'd like." She downed her drink in a swift gulp, slamming the glass on the bar.

"Enough." She turned to the man, a hand on her hip as she considered him for a moment. She sniffed once, primly, before driving her fist hard and fast into the soft spot just below his sternum, knocking the wind out of him and letting him drop to the floor with a moan. She shook her head, stepping over him.

"Hey! Girlie!" A voice hollered behind her, a man at the bar grabbing her shoulder.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" She tossed an apologetic look back at her captain, the woman already visibly irritated, arms folded, eyebrow raised. The left one, for maximum irritability. It was gonna be a hell of a ride to Ganymede. "Sorry Cap'n!" She whirled to face the man, fists already swinging.

* * *

"And what do I always say?" the captain demanded of her first mate.

"Saturday night's alright for fightin'," sighed the girl as she limped up the gangplank into the ship, "as it's the High Holy, and the only fittin' way to celebrate."

"Right. And what's today?"

"Tuesday." Dropping into co-pilot's chair, Su, for that was the first mate's name, groaned as her bruises hit the seat. "Christ, don't these bastards know not to hit a lady?"

"You left them worse for wear. And anyway, they didn't."

"Didn't what?" Mari, for that was the captain's name, grinned as she flicked switches across the board and the ship came to violent, shuddering life around them.

"Didn't hit a lady."

* * *

_Music: Kiss with a Fist – Florence and the Machine_


	2. Real Folk Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Mari catch up

"So what have you set your sights on this time 'round?" Spike asked casually, offering Mari a cigarette from his coat pocket.

"Don't follow." She took one, resting it on her lips as she produced a small metal lighter, flipping it open with a practiced flick of the wrist. Bringing the flame to the tip, she watched the paper curl and blacken as it lit.

"Seems like back then you couldn't go two days without cooking a new scheme," he reminisced, taking the lighter from her and lighting his own before tucking both the pack and the lighter in his pocket. She elbowed him in the ribs, and he pulled the lighter back out, depositing it in her waiting hand with a lopsided grin.

"Times change, Spike. Ol'  _Genrou_  here's all I need." Mari pet the hull of the ship fondly, leaning her back against the steel as she took a long pull of her cigarette. She tossed her head back while she exhaled, watching a ring of smoke climb into the night air to disappear into the stars.

"You named her  _Genrou_?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Him," Mari corrected, "and no. Won't let Su fly him, so I told her she could name him, instead. She christened him after some hot head little slip of a bandit she met on world when she was a kid. Says all the rust reminds her of him." She chuckled softly.

"Gotta hand it to her. It's a catchy name," he admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah. Kind of grows on you, don't it?"

"What's it mean?" he asked, taking another long drag off of his cigarette.

"Phantom wolf, I think?" Spike laughed. "What?"

"Suits you."

She looked at him a long moment, before smiling quietly. "Shut up, Spiegel."

"Is this a private party or can one more join?" Appearing behind the pair, Su plucked the cigarette from Mari's lips, taking a long drag as she plopped down between them, flinging her boot-clad legs out before her.

"I suppose we can consider your petition," Mari stated dryly, eyeing her first mate with annoyance at the intrusion and the stolen cigarette. Su blatantly ignored her, leaning into Spike, a lascivious look crossing her dark features.

"Heeeeey, Spike," she purred at the man, "wanna tour of the ship?" He chuckled, shaking his head at the girl. She was persistent, he would give her that. He remembered running into Mari those years ago on Mars, the woman hustling from the landing station, yammering on about scooping up a ship and a friend who was a dab hand at mechanics and good at your back in a duel. Had he'd known at the time she'd meant the tall outlaw he'd seen cackling wildly on Big Shot year after year, he might have thought to warn her against the plan. Not that Mari would have listened, at any rate.

"Mari was just telling me about your naming the ol' boy." Su laughed at that, tossing her head back to cast a dark, but amused, look at her captain.

"Gotta tell everyone I named the ship after a boy," she tsked, "You're gonna ruin my reputation. Yes, well, you know what they say?" Su struck a coquettish pose against the hull. "A girl never forgets her first."

Mari snorted. "Like anyone believes that!" Su emitted a second short chuckle as she leapt to her feet, boots clanging off the hull as rust flakes fell from her pants.

"Well, I'm off to wreak havoc," the girl announced, grinning at the two. "Unless you wanted that tour, Spike?" She leaned in close, slitting her eyes at him as she stage whispered, "I'll let you use the olive oil." The two women laughed uproariously as the tall man was, for the moment, struck dumb.

* * *

_Music: Prelude for Time Feelers - Eluvium_


	3. Pruning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet kills plants.

"Awww, Jet! What did you do to this?" Mari cried, sighing in dismay as she lifted the pot. The poor plant hung limp in the soil, tortured beyond the point of any feasible recovery.

"I just pruned it some. No crime in that!" Jet sat back heavily in his chair, arms crossed as the woman glowered at him, tossing the carcass of what was once a perfectly fine heirloom tomato into the garbage.

"That was a Brandywine, Jet!!" She flopped down across from him, fixing him with a hard glare. "I told you, they're not bonsai. You can't go messing with them all the time."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry," he groaned, waving her scolding off before it became too uncomfortable. "Why are these damn things so important to you anyway? You can pick them up at any old spaceport market."

"Just something I'm holding onto from my days back on Mars," she shrugged, letting her gaze shift to the window, watching as the stars held court on their conversation. "Back in a different lifetime I used to want to grow them. You know, living the dream? House, kids, tomato plants." She reached for the cigarette resting behind her ear, bringing it to her lips and lighting it, letting the smoke curl through her lungs slowly.

"Spike mentioned something about you being married, once."

"Spike's got a mouth on him, don't he?" Mari chuckled. Jet cast her an appraising look, a small smile tweaking at his lips.

"Don't want to talk about it, huh?" he shrugged. "I get it. We all have that thing in our past that's only ours to know." Mari had just opened her mouth when a holler boomed through the ship in Su's twanging voice.

"Get back here you gorram pipsqueak! Them's my boots, I don't care how cute you are!" Ed flew by the room shrieking and giggling in a pair of muddy, over-sized boots, hotly pursued by a barefoot Su, Ein yapping at her heels. Jet threw a dark look at Mari.

"You insist on having that ruffian board my ship every damn time you want to chat," he scowled. Mari only grinned back at him.

"But Ed loves her so! Aside, don't you think Spike would miss all the attention? And what's a little noise and mud between friends?" Jet scowl grew as the voices rose on their return lap. Mari took pity on the taciturn man. "Su!" she roared in her best 'captain-means-serious-business' voice, catching the girl mid-wince in the doorway. "What do you think you're doing muddying up Jet's nice ship?" Su frowned at the two in the room, slouching in, little Ein still snapping at her heels.

"Ed's the one doin' the muddyin', Cap. I just want my damn boots back." She shrugged, quickly following up with a wolfish grin directed toward Jet. "Killed another tomato plant, hey?" She shook her head. "You ain't never gonna eat fresh food this way."

"Be nice," Mari snapped, hiding her smile.

"I'm attemptin', Chief, but this ships tryin' for an outlaw! Ed steals my boots, this gorram dog won't stop trying to herd me, and Faye keeps trying to figure out how she can back-collect on my bounties," Su sulked. "It's enough to make a girl batty."

"I thought you and Faye were getting on?" If the woman was looking for ways to make money of her first mate's head, Mari was not happy.

"Yeah, well," Su directed her cheshire grin at a random bonsai, playing up to the vegetative audience, "I may or may not have taken a pass at Spike again." Glancing at the look on her captain's face, she winced again, holding up her hands in front of her. "Wasn't nothin' but the usual rigmarole, promise!" Mari rolled her eyes. Su's 'usual' was most people's blatant invitation. The girl didn't have a subtle bone in her body. No wonder Faye was pissed. Ed chose that moment to charge into the room, shooting imaginary six shooters and tracking dirt and dust all over the floor. She stopped in front of Mari, eyes widening as she took in the woman's tattoos, piercings, and vibrant blue hair.

"Ooooooh!" She finally stepped out of Su's boots, hopping onto the back of the couch Mari was sitting on. "Pretty pretty!" Ed sunk her fingers into Mari's long blue hair, squealing happily as they got tangled in the neatly bundled dreadlocks. Mari hissed at the tugging on her scalp as Su smirked at her from the floor, pulling her boots back on.

"You kids play nice, Cap'n." Be-booted, Su tripped back out of the room, Ein yapping and darting around her feet.

"Speaking of kids," Mari hissed as Ed yanked a fistful of hair, trying to steer her head like a ship rudder. "Come here, you little space monster!" Mari reached up over her head, snaking her arm around the girl and throwing her into her lap. Ed squealed as Mari's fingers found her half-bare stomach, tickling her until she squirmed.

"No! Nooooooooooooooo!" Ed shrieked, sliding off of her lap and onto the floor, playing dead, tongue lolling out of her mouth for full effect.

"Oops, I seem to have killed her." Mari sighed, getting to her feet and slinging the girl over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Well, I suppose there's nothing for it. We'll just have to shoot her out the airlock!"

"Aieeee!" Ed vaulted off of Mari's shoulders gracefully, darting out of the room and out of sight, presumably to try and reclaim her previously pilfered footwear.

"I'll never understand how you ended up with that." Mari laughed, hands on her hips as she watched the girl pad down the hallway, straight into Faye.

"Watch it!" she screamed, flattening herself against the wall and glaring at Mari when the captain had the audacity to chuckle at her. "You watch it, too." Faye sniffed, turning and disappearing into her room.

"That one, too. What happened, you open a halfway house for wayward ladies who can't seem to find where they left the rest of their laundry?" Jet just laughed at her, sitting back as he laced his fingers behind his head. "Just living the dream, you know? House, dog, couple of ladies who don't much care for shirts."

"Yeah, I think I'll stick with my outlaw." Mari smiled, giving Jet a mock salute before ducking into the hallway to find Su.

"Mari, wait!" Jet called out after her, chasing her down the hall.

"Yeah?"

"So, think I could have a few more of those tomato plants?"

* * *

_Music: Hong Kong Garden – Siouxsie and the Banshees_


	4. Muddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su is filthy

Mari's fingers played elegantly over the control panel of the ship, setting the coordinates of their next stop, their velocity, double checking the directional momentum with their latest cargo. She was as a musician with her instrument. She and the ship had an uncanny feel for each other. The  _Genrou_  had seen its fair share of scrapes and dents, but none were from her time at the helm. From the moment she had taken the captain's chair of the ship, she'd been home.

As she finished setting them to cruise to their destination, Su's boots rang on the floor behind her. Flopping into the co-pilot's chair, the girl kicked her muddy boots up on the readouts there, pulling a multi-tool out of her pocket and going to work on what appeared to be a mash-up of two old-timey devices as she hummed a tune that seemed to consist of the same off-key note over and over. Mari scowled at the girl, grabbing a rag from the toolbox at her feet, shoving the muddy shoes off her previously pristine dash. Su smiled a toothy grin at the woman, letting her heels slam to the floor.

Su owed her captain a life debt. She didn't undervalue the risk that had come with Mari coming to her aid on that god-awful planet where they'd stranded her with no money, no tools, nothing but her clothes, her boots, and her cunning. But a life debt wasn't going to stop her from being an annoying sod at every turn.

"How do you always manage to look like you just slogged through a cow pasture?" Mari groused, using the rag to swipe the mud to the floor.

"You gotta get a little dirty to get the good stuff, Chief." Su shook the mess of wires and springs in her hands at the woman, "Aside, you shoulda seen the farm boy," Su smirked. "As you wish, indeed..." Mari had seen the farm boy, and was pretty sure he was a mental defective.

* * *

It was indecently late when the music blared loud through the ship, coupled with Su's victorious whoop, the racket pulling Mari from book and bed, and across the hall. She pushed open the door without knocking, finding her crew mate doing some series of movements she supposed could only be called dancing.

"What is that horrible noise?" she shouted at Su, hands on hips. The younger woman grinned back, directing a shimmy in her direction.

"I built us a music player, Cap'n!"

"I can- Oh!" Mari threw up her hands, sweeping by the seizing girl to turn down the knob that declared itself the volume. "I can see that. But I asked what the horrible noise was." Su cranked the volume back up, resuming her strange leaping.

"Music!"

"This is  _not_ music. Soon as I can get my hands on some discs, I'll learn you what music really is!" Mari left the room, shaking her head as she slammed the door behind her.

* * *

 

_Music: Dressed in Black – Teengenerate_

 

 

 


	5. Laika

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls get a dog

"What? Is? That?" Su asked, coming to a halt in the metal box they had affectionately dubbed the 'living room'. Mari looked up from her book, following Su's gaze to the well-loved easy chair in the corner.

"I believe that is what they call a dog." Mari shrugged casually, returning her gaze to the book with a smirk. The mutt on the chair looked up at Su, tongue lolling out of her mouth happily as she thumped her tail on the beaten leather, barking a short yip at the woman.

"I know what a dog is. What I don't know is what it's doing in my chair."

"Sitting, I would imagine," Mari quipped, licking a finger and turning a page quietly. Su stomped over to the chair, glaring at the creature.

"Out, you mutt." Su growled at the dog, teeth bared. It cocked its head to the side, tail still wagging away.

"They informed me her name is Sue." Mari didn't look up from her book as she murmured under her breath. Her first mate only growled more loudly. "I thought it was too confusing, as well. We'll have to think of something else."

"How bout 'Lunch'?" Su threw herself bodily on the couch, pouting at the creature in her chair.

"Nah, makes me too hungry." Mari put the book down, regarding the dog for a moment before chuckling softly. The dog yipped happily at her, too-long tongue still lolling out of the side of her mouth. "I think I'll call her Laika."

* * *

 

_Music: Laika – Moxy Fruvous_


	6. Guns and Dicks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Su go out drinking with friends

Mal and Mari were busy laughing at something Su was sure only made sense if you were a captain. Rolling her eyes, she turned her attention back to the very inebriated man at her left. "So... Jayne. Tell me about yourself."

"I got a gun named Vera."

"You don't say?" she grinned at him, knocking back another shot. "I got a gun named Jayne."

"Really?!" He grinned at her in his dopey way.

"No. Not really." Her grin grew broader as his faced dropped into a scowl at her mocking. "Men are the only creatures dumb enough to name things. Like guns, and their dicks." His scowl deepened, and she laughed. "Thought so!"

Mari kicked her boots off the table, leaning in toward Mal in a conspiratorial fashion as she watched her first mate reduce Jayne to a red, stammering mess. "What do you reckon those two are talking about?" she asked him in a too-loud whisper, taking a long pull off her bourbon. Mal looked at them with a hazy glance, so far past the point of inebriation Mari wouldn't have trusted him to tie his own bootstraps if his life depend on it. Not that she was faring much better.

"With Jayne? My guess is somethin' pertaining to his unmentionables." Mal grinned at her, pulling her glass out of her hand and sloshing the dark liquid onto the counter top as he finished the glass in a gulp. Mari glowered at him, eyes narrowing as she snatched the glass back.

"That was expensive," she muttered.

"Send me the bill." Mal leaned toward her heavily, the drink on his breath tickling her nose as the last drink made him begin to sway.

"Why, Captain Reynolds! I do believe that you are drunk," Mari gasped, a hand flying to her chest in mock horror.

"Why, Miss Mari... I do believe I am." Mal hiccupped loudly, his face tinting a darling shade of green before his head fell heavily on the table, a soft grunt escaping from his lips. Mari chuckled, looking over at Su to find her flashing her a toothy grin, her boots resting upon Jayne's back as the man drooled inelegantly over the tabletop. She glanced at her watch, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, that's a new record," she whistled, reaching for Mal's wallet with clumsy fingers and emptying the contents, sparing a few bills for the table before stuffing the rest into her pocket. Su got to her feet, contemplating her drinking partner for a moment before snatching the god-awful hat the man insisted on wearing off his head. "You're going to take that? Really?"

"What?" Su whined, pulling it down over her long hair snugly. "It's a cunning hat! Woman walks down the street in this hat, man knows she ain't afraid of anything." She struck what she seemed to think was a dignified pose, but Mari only rolled her eyes.

"Come on, let's make ourselves scarce before these two babes see fit to wake up and take back what's theirs."

* * *

"This is  _Genrou_  hailing  _Serenity_. Come in  _Serenity_. Repeat, this is  _Genrou_  hailing  _Serenity_." The comm crackled with dead air, clicking softly as Mari waited for a response.

"What do you want, Mari?" The dry, unamused voice crackled over the dash as  _Serenity's_  pilot returned the transmission.

"Waaaaaaaaash! How are you?" Mari piped cheerfully, trying desperately to sound less drunk than she actually was. "How's the missus?"

"Where'd you leave them this time?" Wash sighed, beleaguered.

"Don't worry, we left their pants on this time." Su crowed over her shoulder, a wicked grin splitting her face as the two dissolved into drunken laughter.

"Mari? Mari, it's Zoe." Another voice cut over the comm link. Su clapped a sudden hand over Mari's laughing mouth, making her face deadly serious as she responded.

"Zoe, it's Su. Mari's indisposed at the moment. How are  _you_ , though? How's that handsome husband of yours?" The women fell into heaps of silent giggles as they could hear the scuffle on the other end of the link, the muffled bickering of the couple on the other end leaking through the static.

"Su, it's Wash, please-"

"Wash, now how many times do I have to tell you? The rumor of my love for red-heads is greatly overblown. Aside, you've got that foxy wife of yours to keep in line. Who, may I add, you so rudely interrupted."

"GORRAM IT, you two, will you stop rutting around and tell us where Mal and Jayne are?!" Mari shoved Su away from the controls, holding back a snort as the girl landed face first on the floor.

"We left 'em in Hadrian's Hole down on Main." Mari grinned despite herself, Mal's drunken face swimming before her mind's eye. "Don't worry, they ain't got nothin' left to steal." A string of colorful Mandarin invective came across the comm link in Zoe's voice. Su saluted Mari with a flask she had appeared from nowhere, pushing back the hideous mess of knitting on her head as she drank deeply.

"Roger,  _Serenity_. Oh, and Zoe? Wash? Tell Mal I said 'Thanks for the tip on the cargo.'" Mari winced at Su as the voice shrieked out of the comm one last time.

"Oh, NO! You two are not getting your stinking outlaw hands-" Su's thumb mashed at the talk button forcefully.

"OVER AND OUT,  _SERENITY_!"

The two fell into peals of laughter, drunkenly congratulating each other on a night well spent.

* * *

 

_Music: Get Lucky - Daft Punk/ We are Young - Fun._


	7. Zachary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari reminisces

The moments like this one were the ones she lived for.

Sitting in the cockpit, the ship silent save for the hum of the thrusters as it sailed through space, vibrating like the purr of a sleeping kitten. She would lean back in the worn chair, fingers laced behind her head, gaze lost to the stars. Even in all that dead space, it felt warm.

Alive.

She never understood those who thought that space was cold. Not when she saw so much potential lying out there beyond the stars. It was so full.

In the quiet moments she felt like she could remember who she used to be. The bright-eyed girl growing up on Mars, dreaming about a future out in the 'verse. A life spent chasing shooting stars in a ship that could catch them.

"Not exactly how we pictured it, huh Zach?" she asked the empty air beside her, the ghost of a memory flying co-pilot while Su slept soundly in her bunk. Her fingers sought her left hand, looking for the small metal band that had graced it years ago and finding nothing but bare skin.

The stars shone down on her, silent and radiant, and she sighed deeply as she closed her eyes, banishing her ghosts.

* * *

 

_Music: Here with Me – Sarah Brightman_


	8. Ne'er-Do-Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su's sordid past

She had been sixteen when she'd stolen her first spaceship, shooting through the ether into the brilliant verse, lights flashing in her eyes and cry of beautiful freedom on her lips. She'd crashed it almost immediately two planets over, tripping from the wreckage with breathless laughter at the sheer dumb luck of her continuing life. The authorities, pulling up across the desert in their skimmers, had been less than amused at the ship half-buried in the sand before them, and not at all impressed that the girl had survived the sound-barrier breaking crash that some had thought an epic meteor come to end their dusty planet.

The mug shots showed a cheeky girl with wild hair in a wispy sun dress and well-worn boots, face stretched in a ne'er-do-well grin that would have been called rogueish on a man. Two days before her trial, she'd disappeared completely. The deputy in charge was found ten miles away in an intergalactic hangar, bound and gagged with strips of wispy cloth.

And, as they say, the rest was history.

Until one wrong redhead and one wrong ship. The Alliance finally caught up with her and dumped her back on Mars, a tracker in her neck and strict orders to stay put 'or else.' She'd practically been ready to scratch off her own skin when Mari showed up like a mirage, dragging her out of the dark halfway house to see the rust bucket she was determined to save from the scrap heap.

Everything Su had wanted in life, her childhood friend was offering her. A ship, adventure, a way (mostly within the law) to use her cunning... and freedom. The beautiful, sweet freedom of waking up on a different planet every day. Of moving when it suited them. Of not being stapled down to the ground, shuttling through the stunning expanse of the 'verse.

And so, in three days time, her tracker had been yanked out by a black market chirurgeon and placed in a woman of ill-repute who was more than happy to accept the meager stipend for her services. Su had nothing to her name but her boots and her brains, but she was free, so who cared about any of that? She had all she needed, what she wanted she could steal.

And with that the women took off in a blaze of fire, twin cries of victory on their lips as  _Genrou_  broke to the stars.

* * *

 

_Music: Sail – AWOLNATION_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari has a hard time making it

It had taken Mari years to work her way up the outlaw ladder.

Years.

Years of fake IDs and smuggling and filling her body with ink and metal to look the part. Of hawking almost every award and badge she had been presented to prove her loyalty didn't lie with anyone on the up and up. Of bar fights, back alley brawls, and more broken noses than she cared to count. And she had only made it a couple rungs up for all her effort. She was still too polished, too clean. Her boots were never dirty enough. Her knuckles too far from busted. There was a cadence to her speech that just screamed 'Alliance brat' to anyone who spoke to her, no matter how many vowels she tried to slur or swallow. Too many gorram 'fancy manners', for all she tried to hide them.

And even after all that, after all the fighting and the struggling, it was Su who finally gave her an in. The reckless girl with the easy smile and even easier uppercut. For Su, it wasn't effort, it was life. Fighting and cussing and finding a bed in any old spaceport without worrying about what would happen the next day. It hadn't really hit her full in the face until the two women had docked in Blue Heaven together for the first time. That Corbanite mechanic took to Su like shine on polished boots, and they had found themselves leaving two days later with an open invitation to dock on their return and a full tank of fuel on the house.

"How did you do that?" Mari asked her, fidgeting with the heavy blue ropes of hair that hung down in her eyes and chewing on the end of one unconsciously as she ran her hands over the controls, trying not to seem as impressed as she was with  _Genrou's_  tune up.

"Do what?" Su tilted her head back, looking at Mari from her upside down vantage, cheshire grin all the more unsettling flipped on its head.

"Get that Corbanite to cotton to you so easy?" she frowned, setting the autopilot and sitting back with a sigh.

"Ain't nothing I did. It's in what I didn't do," Su explained, flipping herself rightways up and hopping up onto the console. "Folks like Swanso, they just wanna know you're not playin' them, ya know? They don't much care who you are, s'long as you ain't what ya aren't." She shrugged, vaulting to her feet and dusting her hands on her pant legs. "In other words," her hand found the back of Mari's head, smacking it lightly, "stop trying so gorram hard." A perfectly accented string of foreign expletives fell from Mari's lips as she scowled at her first mate, and Su just smiled at her. "See, that's what I'm talking about. No one in the 'verse who can cuss that pretty should be hidin' a talent like that."

"That easy, yeah?"

"Yeah. That easy." And from then on, it was.

* * *

 

_Music: Natural Blues – Moby_

 

 


	10. Engine Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su loves her some engine

She lay on her back under  _Genrou's_  main thrusters, stripped to her underwear in the hot engine room, hands slick with oil and brow damp with sweat as she thrust her arms into the engine up to her elbows. Her fingers coaxed the wires and routers into position with tweaks and caresses, delicate in her work.

Goddamn, but she loved this rust bucket and all it entailed. Loved its quirks and oddities. The frayed electronics and pockmarked surfaces. It was her life, her freedom. Without the ship, she was nothing; without her, the ship would only be flying to the nearest scrap heap.

Su pulled her hands from the engine, wiping the grease on them across her belly as she slid out from under the engine. She rose, disheveled, to stand at the control panel for the core, fingers dancing across the wires are she bit her lip, voice purring in her throat. Her fingers flipped across the switches, adjusting the dials. She moved back to the engine, hand smoothing appreciatively across its surface as it slowly whirred into life, echoing her deep purr, bringing a satisfied smile to her face.

"That's my boy."

* * *

 

_Music: Further On Up the Road – Johnny Cash_


	11. The Gin Diaries: Gin & Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su brings a red-head home

The boy kept buying her gin, like he intended something by it. Each drink delivered with his swagger, a wink, a cocky boyish grin, and Su felt her knees go weak as he tossed his cherry red hair out of his eyes.

Damn, if she wasn't a sucker for that color.

So, as she found herself reaching that point where things like logical thought mattered less, and the demands of her rabid libido mattered more, she hauled him in by his lapels for a kiss, then another, and another as he responded in turn, his big hands cradling the back of her head. He kissed her to the cab, groped and grinded against her to the ship (much to the dismay of the robotic driver), and grabbed at her in a deliciously rude way as he followed to her bunk. It wasn't until the morning when she woke, deliciously sore and head still swimming with gin as his voice rasped away at a song in the shower, that she saw the captain leaning in the doorway with a downright pissy look on her face and remembered her vow to stop trusting redheads. Especially the kind who looked broke but spent big.

A vow she had made years ago, and conveniently forgot on a regular basis. A vow that she chose to forget again as he strolled out of the bathroom, a towel slung ridiculously low on his hips.

Mari's voice was low, but it cracked like a whip across his lopsided grin. "Gene  _fucking_  Starwind." The man froze in his tracks, shoulders hunching protectively as he looked up at Mari through wet bangs, his easy smile replaced with a nervous grimace.

"Maaaaaaari. How are you?" he asked nervously, taking a few steps closer to Su as Mari shifted her weight off the door frame, advancing on him.

"How am I?" Mari reached for her holster, pulling out her pistol and letting her finger dance dangerously over the safety as she looked up at him through her lashes. "How are the two dozen caster shells you stole from me last time I landed on this backwater rock, Gene?" She leveled the pistol at him, holding it to his throat and watching the barrel bob as he swallowed heavily. In her bunk, Su groaned, covering her ears.

"Can you two keep it down? My head is killin' me here!" She flopped down on the mattress, dragging a pillow over her face. Gene raised a hand, holding it out protectively in front of him as Mari snarled at him, twisting the barrel to fit into the soft underside of his chin and grinning as she watched him flinch nervously.

"Half of those were 7's, Gene. Do you know how much those cost me?"

"Look. It wasn't personal," he stammered. She pressed the gun harder to his throat. "I swear!" Mari glowered at him for another long moment before holstering her pistol with a smooth, practiced motion.

"Get your sorry ass off of my ship," she warned, cool and low.

"Yeah, yeah," Gene grumbled, reaching to pick up his scattered effects. He heard the click of the safety again, and looked up to find himself staring down the barrel of Mari's pistol once more.

"Oh no. Those are mine now."

"What!?"

"You heard me, Starwind. It ain't near even half of what you owe me."

"You can't be serious?" he cried.

"You want me to take the towel, too?" She raised an eyebrow at him, watching as he gave up the fight, edging carefully around her and taking off down the hallway as the angry slap of his bare feet disappeared slowly. Mari holstered her pistol with a groan, grabbing the pillow off of Su's head and smacking the girl heavily with it. "You have the worst taste in men!"

"But he bought me gin!" the girl whined, holding her aching head, "You know what that does to me! And the hair... And his-"

"No, No, No, No, NO!" Mari hollered, punctuating each word with the pillow to the girl's head. "We are not having a conversation about Gene  _fucking_  Starwind's unmentionables! You are not going back for seconds! And I am not seeing his sorry ass on my ship again!" Su groaned, rolling off the bunk and dragging herself toward the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind her as retching sounds came from behind it. Mari kicked the door out of spite. "You better hope he didn't make off with more than that towel!" Mari hissed, scooping Gene's too large coat off the floor and rummaging through the pockets for anything that could be deemed useful, finding little more than a few unspent rubbers and pocket lint. She threw the coat to the ground with a pretty string of curses. "No more gin for you!" She kicked the door one more time for good measure, triggering another violent bout of retching behind the metal panel. "Ever!"

Su threw open the door, falling out onto the floor. "No fair!" she whined. "You get all the bourbon you want! And we both know what it does to  _you_ . I mean, Mal, Mari. MAL!" Mari  threw the coat at the woman, ignoring the moan that rang out from underneath.

"Take a gorram shower." Mari used her best captain's voice for the decree. "You smell like sick up and outlaw sex and that awful fucking cologne." Su hiccuped, flying up toward the toilet once more. "And burn that rutting coat! No souvenirs this time!"

* * *

Mari banged through the cargo hold, looking for every bottle of gin she could find, fully intending on emptying each and every one into the sink while Su watched, just to teach the girl a lesson. "Stupid gorram outlaw dragging that sorry piece of ass onto my ship!" She grumbled to herself, falling back against the hull of the cargo bay, bottle of gin still in her hand as he let the fight leave her with a sigh. She placed the neck of the bottle between her teeth, loosening the cap and spitting it inelegantly across the floor, listening to it clatter against the cold metal. The gin was cheap, and it burned in that way that made you simultaneously feel like it was sterilizing your gut and burning a hole through it at the same time. She shook her head violently, choking the last of the mouthful back with a cough.

Honestly, she couldn't begrudge Su for needing to scratch an itch, abysmal as the woman's taste in bed partners was. But the fact that she brought up Mal... With a groan, she let her head fall to her knees, trying to hide the embarrassment as she felt a bit of girlish heat crawl across her cheeks, recalling a clumsy, bourbon soaked evening on Ariel almost a year back.

Su had always gotten one thing right. Bar fights did make for some mighty fine foreplay.

* * *

 

_Music: I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked – Ida Maria_


	12. The Gin Diaries: Sloe Gin Fizz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari remembers a fun night with Mal

They'd been on Ariel overnight with drive troubles. Su was furious with the inept mechanic, boots pounding through the ship after the fifth disagreement as she slammed through Mari's door. "The man's a fucking moron!" Su declared, slouching against the wall with her arms folded. "Gorram Alliance mechanics are useless. Please, please, please, please, pleeeeeease can't we just go to a black market -"

"Not risking it on an Alliance planet. You're just gonna have to deal, little outlaw." Su threw up her hands, cussing out Mari in the little pidgin Mandarin she'd picked up from the woman. The argument following spanned multiple rooms and languages, accusations flying with whatever wasn't nailed down. A wall was dented, the mechanic made to fear for his life, and finally Mari stormed out of the ship, threatening Su with banishment if the drive wasn't fixed upon her return.

_Gorram  outlaw. Why'd I ever think she'd make herself useful?_  The captain fumed.  _Should have left the mule back on Mars._  Stuck in her head, her body moved on auto-pilot across the city, surprising her when she found herself standing before of one of the city's more notorious underground bars.  _What the hell, might as well._  Mari backtracked a half block back to the joint's doorbell, ringing in the pattern Spike had taught her on a drunken bar ramble years ago - tap, hold, tap, tap, hold. A tiny red light went on, and after a quick dart back down the block and she slipped silently through a small opening that appeared in a garage door.

Mari stepped into the dark of the bar, holding back as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of hundreds of lit candles reflecting in the tarnished metal of the bar's fixtures. The scruffy, oddly dressed clientele spared barely a glance in her direction, more interested in their odd tinctures and smoking mixtures as Mari passed to the bar beneath a woman contorting in a net hanging from the ceiling. It had always been ironic to her that a bar catering to thieves and outlaws was so obsessed with its own anachronistic, archaic image. Even lowlifes had an upper echelon, it seemed.

Grabbing her tumbler of bourbon, she moved to the second room, settling onto a low couch as her eyes focused on the screen that provided the only light in the room. A charming oddity, the bar's second room was a sea of antiquated armchairs and couches, all turned to face a bare cement wall. Devoid of the candles and reflective surfaces of the first area, its focus was the huge broadcast of snippets and snapshots on the wall. Bits of life from the last century. People lolled in the seating around the room, eyes locked on the makeshift screen as their chosen sedatives settled into their brains.

"Hello, Miss Mari." She recognized Reynolds' husky voice as it wound through the dark toward her, slipping low under the quiet of the room. Mari looked at him through the piecemeal light, intrigued by what she saw. The usual roguish smile was gone from his lips, his dark eyes warm with liquor. Seeing his face in this light, with the serious look about him - something stirred in her. How odd...

"It's 'captain', Captain Reynolds."

"Of course, silly me. Where's your usual outlaw shadow, Captain?" Mal settled back against his side of the couch, relaxed for once as he imbibed deeply from his glass and considered her with those dark eyes. Her own eyes narrowed as she took him in. The mussed hair, the ease of his posture, that... look. Away from his team and a touch inebriated, he dropped the usual blustering swagger that made her want to kick him upon every interaction. A small smile tugged at her lips as she leaned on the arm opposite him, kicking her long legs up to rest her perfectly spotless, shined boots in his lap.

"I left her on ship. Where's the Browncoat? Or that two-timing meat head you saw fit to inflict on the 'verse?"

"Left 'em on ship." One of his hands came down to rest on her boot, and she watched as it slowly slid up toward her knee, caressing the shiny leather. 

"Good call, Captain." They sat there in the flickering light, considering each other in this new venue and trading brief, low words that rose in a subtle flirtation as they sipped at their drinks. Mari was surprised to find herself calming, enjoying his company and for once having no desire to drink him under the table and make off whatever she could find in his pockets. The screen changed once, twice, quiet servers refilling their glasses as the film flickered by. A few minutes of women dancing in elaborate costumes on muddy black and white, neon violins clasped tightly in their hands; a brief clip of a house running on chicken legs across a hilly landscape; screen popping into life with the scene of a woman and man tangled in a passionate embrace. His eyes grew heated, weighing heavy on her. Her breath fluttered in her chest as she stared him down.

A cold splash fell across her cheek, running down her front and soaking into her crisp white shirt. A startled squeak broke her lips as she twisted around to face the drunk leaning against the couch, a leering apology barely leaving his lips before Mal was on him, throwing him back onto a couch with a practiced hand. Mari was on her feet as the man's friends rushed up, her fist meeting his jaw soundly as Mal spun and met the other with a foot. They fought well together, a waltz for those living on the edge of society, fists and feet moving in sync through the drunks that charged at them. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as her blood sang, and she found herself grinning at Mal through the fray, his dark eyes flashing a reply.

Once the men were down, he seized her hand, pulling her behind him to the front of the bar and out the small door. She considered his back as he led her through the overdeveloped streets of Ariel, considered his strong shoulders, his mussed hair. Was she really doing this? Was she really letting Malcolm Reynolds drag her back to his room like a caveman? Was she for once going to take a backseat and let him take charge of her with his 'miss'es and rehearsed gentility? As they crashed through the door to the tiny room he'd secured in a pension, his hands seized at her, his mouth dropping to hers with an unexpected ferocity as he tugged at the damp shirt.

Yes, she thought. Yes, she decided.

Yes.

She returned to the ship the following morning. The drive was fixed, but Su was still pouty from the previous day's fight. They launched into orbit, her smile and silence driving the outlaw crazy. Of course, Su finally came up with the evidence later, pissing Mari off by 'helping to do the laundry' and discovering a kerchief that had wound up in one of her pockets. Some trinket from Inara, Mari had assumed, as she couldn't see Mal carrying anything with his initials otherwise. The mocking had been merciless.

It had been worth it.

* * *

 

A shower and three painkillers later, Su emerged into the hold to find her captain in a haze of memories, the bottle a quarter empty beside the woman. "That's my gin," the girl groused, seizing the bottle and tossing back a practiced swig. "First you kick out that charming young lad, and then you drink my gin. You don't even like gin. I call bullshit, Cap."

"Shut up. You should know better. What do I always say?"

"Don't trust a scoundrel. But, Cap, his -"

"Hair, yes. And how many times have you promised to stop courtin' red-heads?" Su grinned between pulls of gin.

"Every time. But you should have seen his-"

"I have seen it. Men tend to have those. I hear it comes equipped standard with the model."

"CAP! I didn't know! I'm so sorry I-"

"Oh, come off it, I didn't rut with that."

"But then how...?"

"Darling, you could fill the 'verse with things you don't know about me. Now get off your high skimmer and get to your chores. I believe the decks are in need of a good swabbing."

"Cap'n, you take all the O2 out my hull, you know that?"

"Get to work."

* * *

 

_Music: When You Were Young – The Killers_

 


	13. Console

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari loves her some console, Su is not impressed

Mari lay on her back, pulling out the guts of the navigation board and groping for the tools she left just outside their casing, a small flashlight clenched between her teeth as she peered into the dark jungle of wires and electronics. Her hand traveled over the cold floor, coming to rest on a pair of boots.

"Cap, what the hell are you doing?" Mari pushed herself out of the cramped space, blinking up at Su as the bright lights on the bridge momentarily blinded her.

"Hunin uhf da naf," Mari explained, flashlight still between her teeth. Su reached down, plucking it from her mouth before flopping back in the pilot's chair, pointing the small light at the captain's face.

"Care to try that again? I couldn't hear you over the sound of flashlight."

"Tuning up the nav." Mari hopped to her feet, dusting imaginary dirt off her hands as she snatched the flashlight back. " _Gernou's_  been sluggish, he could probably use it."

"Sure you don't want me to do that?" Her first mate cast a wary eye at her. Mari knew her way around the ship well enough, but it always made her a bit nervous when she went pulling at  _Genrou's_  insides. That was her job, and a good part of the captain's practice was more prep-school theory and less real world application. Fine on a standard issue Alliance ship, but not so much on a tin can where some of the wiring connections were made with spit, a paperclip, and a prayer.

"Believe it or not, I can do more than fly this thing," Mari sighed, stroking the open console fondly. "Isn't that right, boy?" She cooed at the ship's dark screens, blowing a kiss at it if for nothing else other than to watch Su roll her eyes at her. "'Sides, we're grounded at the moment, so we don't have to worry none about crashing or dying." She lowered herself to the floor and disappeared inside the console casing again, the board lighting up as she plugged a wire back into place.

"Yeah, I know. Still don't mean you're good at it," Su muttered.

"What was that?" Mari's voice echoed out from the electric jungle of wires, her eye appearing under a particularly tangled bundle she seemed to be wrestling with.

"Nothing, Cap!" Mari held her gaze a moment more before disappearing again.

"Off with you. Go find some mischief. That's an order!" Mari's voice drifted up to her first mate, and Su couldn't help but chuckle, peering in after the captain one more time before strolling off the bridge. They weren't scheduled to leave planet for another two days. That left her plenty of time to fix whatever mess Mari made.

Mari hummed happily as she worked, plugging in the wires neatly as she adjusted the tangles, tucking things away in the ancient dash until they all held securely,  _Genrou's_  nav board flashing to life above her. She crawled out a final time, locking the maintenance panel back into place and hopping over the console to fall into the chair on the other side as she surveyed her handy work, testing all the ports for activity.  She smiling as the nav beeped softly at her, letting her know where she was on a small readout.

"That's my good boy."

* * *

 

_Music: On Melancholy Hill – Gorillaz_

 

 

 

 


	14. Wiggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su gets Mari a present

Su sauntered onto the bridge, humming a little tune to herself, her hands clasped behind her back. She hovered behind the captain, staring out the atmoscreen over the woman's head. "Always wondered why you didn't decorate more up here, Cap'n." Mari turned to look at Su, narrowing her eyes at the blank look on her first mates face.

"What're you on about?" The girl only batted her eyelashes at the captain innocently.

"I'm just sayin', Cap. Wash has his dinos, Gene paints every gorram thing red, heck, even Jet has some little things to look at on his bridge. You keep it so spare up here. " Mari rolled her eyes, turning back to the console with a shrug.

"I like it clean. Nothin' to distract me from what  _Genrou's_  tryin' tell me." Su leaned forward, resting her chin on Mari's shoulder.

"I think somethin' small might not hurt." She reached forward, fingers pushing the base of a small, scantily-clad hula dancer to a blank spot of metal on the console. Even in the still of space the tiny creature wibbled and wobbled its hips in a becoming dance.

"Where did you get that hideous thing?" The captain's lip curled. Su straightened, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she turned to stroll from the room.

"Snatched it from a shop back on Jupiter."

"You couldn't just pay for it?" Su just snorted.

"Had to pay for the super glue, Chief. You don't give me a ton of spending money."

Mari reached forward, grasping the tiny doll by the base and giving it a sharp tug. It didn't budge. " _Wo de ma..."_

* * *

 

_Music: Tiny Bubbles – Don Ho_


	15. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari's bunk

Neat.

That would be the word to best describe Mari's bunk. Basic and orderly, much like the captain. Everything had a place. The furniture was practical, the wood always polished to a soft glow. Clothes always tucked away neatly in drawers. Bed always made. Boots clean and polished by her bedside.

Then there were the plants.

If there was a bare spot, there was something green growing on it. Ivy, ferns, and pothos dripped from the netting on the ceiling in a green canopy, punctuated by U.V. lights in little silver shells clipped here and there to feed them the light the 'verse couldn't provide. Orchids curled through the small terrarium on the floor. Aloe and other succulents lined the sill of the large window that hovered over her bunk. She even had a small cactus, secured safely to the table across the room, just in case  _ Genrou _  should decide to toss her about unexpectedly. Nothing she could eat, these were only for her. Something for her to rest her eyes on. Something for her to love in the dark of space. To remind her of home when the nights were a touch too cold. It was a stark contrast to the rest of it. A riot layered over the order, like the ancient cities of Earth that had been abandoned and left to the wilds.

She started her private garden to lure her away from the bridge at night, back when she had been too afraid to leave it. Years of training telling her mind that you didn't abandon your post until you were relieved. It had taken months to break the habit. Long, quiet nights of little sleep, lost in her own head. The gardening helped. Cheap therapy, someone had once told her. Eventually, she began to fall asleep as the small work table in her room, fingers tangled in soil and tools. And one night, she finally found her way to the bed,  _Genrou_  sailing silently through space as the autopilot guided him gently. Years later, it had become her sanctuary. A small private piece of herself. She would leave the bridge, curling herself in the fluffy down comforter, glasses resting on her nose and a book in her hands. Boots traded for soft slippers and her outlaw uniform traded for a soft sleeveless shift.

A strange, blue bird bundled in her self-made nest.

* * *

 

_Music: Take the Long Way Home – Supertramp_


	16. Mari, Mari, Quite Contrary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HYDROPONICS!

"Why do we waste our money on this stuff?" Su turned over the bruised fruit in her hand, sniffing it before dropping it back in the bin. "It only lasts for a week, tops. Then we're back to protein again." Mari frowned at the bruised peaches, passing them over and tossing a head of cabbage into her bag.

"I know, but we need it. Can't eat protein all the time," she sighed.

"But it's so expensive. We could re-outfit the sub drives in what we spend on freshies each year. Hell, we could grow it ourselves more cheaply than this  _goushi_."

"Ain't got the money to refit the sub drives," Mari reminded her first mate. Su huffed, wandering off in favor of the aisles of cheap, foil wrapped packages declaring themselves 'food' with loud labels. Mari watched her go, the gears spinning in her head. Su was right, they spent far too much on fresh food when they could get it.

* * *

The clanging drew Su from her bunk, echoing through the ship and leading her tired feet to the mess. Mari was perched on a countertop, drilling a complicated system of lights and wiring into the ceiling.

"The fuck are you doing?" Su yawned, scratching the side of her head as she looked at her captain.

"Hydroponics!" Mari exclaimed, hopping down and brushing her hands off, a huge grin crossing her face. "I got to thinking. You're right, we waste way too much money on fresh food, so let's just grow it!"

"Cap, don't know if you noticed, but we live on a ship." Su knocked her knuckles against the hull, letting the hollow clang illustrate her point. "Metal. No dirt. No sun. Unless your plants gonna grow in rust and bolts I don't see how you plan on doing this." Mari only grinned wider.

"That's where the lights come in. We don't need any sun. Don't even need dirt! People used grow all sorts of things this way in all sorts of places." Su raised an eyebrow cautiously.

"What were they growing that they had to do it in the dark?" Mari waved her off.

"Dunno, but we're going to grow tomatoes!"

"Uh huh. And how much did this all cost?"

"Tomatoes," Mari repeated, ushering Su out of the galley and into the hallway. "Tomato sauce, and sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper, and roasted tomatoes, and-"

"Yeah, yeah. Tomatoes!" Su swept her arms out in front of her grandly. "Tomatoes everywhere. Just don't take over the whole gorram galley."

* * *

The tomatoes led to spinach. The spinach led to peppers. The peppers led to herbs. The herbs led to... other herbs. And so on and so forth, until Mari slowly transformed most of their modest galley into a jungle of edibles, food growing wherever she could get it to. The herbs grew on neat rows along the wall, situated snugly in old storm gutters. Lettuces, small cabbages and spinach ran along the floor in neat lines. There was even a small strawberry patch, growing suspended from elevated boxes, the plants hanging their ruby fruits over the edges for easy harvest. Mari had even managed to jury rig a small UV light system so she could grow some of the plants in soil, several heirloom tomato plants sprouting happily in their pots.

It wasn't a lot, but it was plenty for the two of them and a few spare mouths when they dropped by, the processed protein meatballs tasting somewhat more like actual food smothered in homemade tomato sauce and a side of stuffed peppers.

* * *

 

_Music: These Apples – Barenaked Ladies_


	17. Ladylike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal and Wash collect on a debt

"Not a word!" Mari growled at Su as the girl stomped into the kitchen, stopping dead in her tracks in the doorway. A snicker rose from the kitchen table, and Su's gaze shifted to the two gentlemen who were trying not to dissolve into a fit of laughter and failing miserably.

"Uh, Cap'n? There seems to be two pirates huffin' nitrous in the kitchen." She looked between the two men, Mal and Wash falling against each other as tears began to spring to their eyes from suppressed laughter. "And why are you wearing-"

"Not. A. Word!" Mari growled between clenched teeth. Mal stood, holding his hand out to Su and offering her a seat.

"Su, my fine outlaw friend, come join us! Ya see, we were just collecting on a little debt your captain here owed us. Ain't that just so, Mari?" Mari growled, turning a very becoming shade of red as she adjusted the monstrosity of an apron, batting the ruffles out of her face as she stood at the stove stirring something that, despite the joke, smelled delightful.

"Oooooooooh." Su sat between the two men, lacing her fingers under her chin and grinning as she stared Mari down. "Do tell."

"Why don't we leave it at 'never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line'?" The be-ruffled captain griped, sniffing at the delicious steam emanating from the pot. The men dissolved into uproarious laughter as Su eyed them irritably.

"Tell me, gorramit!" she snapped, trodding on a foot under the table.

"Well, you see, my little space outlaw," Wash began, "your darling captain here snatched a neat little contract from us a few months back."

"That was a bit more important than your greedy little brains thought." Mal intoned darkly, eyes narrowing at Mari, who glared back.

"Almost got us in trouble when you popped up instead." Wash continued, deftly plucking Su's hand from his thigh with a frown she only countered with a grin.

"So, here we are," Mal announced, "Ready and waiting for our payment for not taking every last thing you have in hold and leaving you two out to dry on some desert planet."

"You would never, Mal!"

"Maybe not, but I can tell you one thing," he looked at her seriously for a moment, anxiety creeping up her spine at his measuring gaze, "you better cooperate."

"Cooperate? What-"

"Madam, your get-up." Wash held up a fistful of garish cloth and Su's eyes widened with a gulp.

"Do I get to wear that over my clothes?" Su gulped again as both men shook their heads.

"Just be glad they didn't invite Jayne and start baking the damn cake!" Mari slammed down the bowl in front of Su, holding the back of the apron closed with her free hand.

"Now, no need to be so hostile," Mal smirked, sitting back in his chair. "Not as if you ain't got nothing I haven't been privy to under that layer cake there." He winked at Mari, laughing as she glowered at him with a look that could curdle milk.

"I was wonderin' where the third stooge was," Su muttered, dropping her mechanic coveralls in a careless pile, unembarrassed as Mal and Wash's eyes widened at her exhibitionism. She pulled on the skimpy, ruffled horror, considering it for a long moment. "I have the perfect accessory for this!" Reaching into the pile of her clothes, she came up again with the utterly horrible knit hat she'd acquired at their last meeting. "Right. Now, gents, what is your dessert preference?"

"Shut up and bake the cake, Su!" Mari snapped at the girl, whacking her knit clad head with the wooden spoon she'd been using.

"Only if I can sit in Wash's lap!" Su pouted.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no... I'm afraid I'm a one woman man! Perhaps my captain, though?" Su grinned as she flounced toward Mal, plopping on his legs before the man could stop her.

"Christ, woman," he yelped, "Are you made of iron?!" She frowned, stirring sugar into the mess in the bowl before her.

"It ain't nice to mention a lady's weight, sir." 

The whole ordeal became a touch more bearable once Su joined the little party, flouncing her ruffle clad person over Wash and Mal long enough for Mari to slam down two plates of food in front of them.  "Just eat it and go." Mari whined, sitting opposite them in nothing but her boots and skivvies, the ruffly horror that could only loosely be referred to as an apron lying discarded on the back of her chair. She smiled as Wash went a lovely hue of red, stammering and letting his gaze fall to his plate. "What's the matter, Wash. Don't like the view?" She raised an eyebrow at him, taking a long pull from a bottle of bourbon she had pulled from the cupboard, long booted legs crossed demurely in front of her.

"No, I just... you're supposed to be wearing the apron. That was the deal. I distinctly remember that being the deal!"

"To cook, I was," Mari leaned in toward him. "No one said nothing about serving you in it afterwards. Now eat your gorram stroganoff before I let my first mate sit in your lap, tell you what she wants for Christmas, and send a picture back to that charming wife of yours."

"Ooh, you heard the woman!" Su came bounding out of the pantry, making straight for Wash with a toothy grin. The man leapt from his seat, bolting around the table as she approached.

"Now, now, Su, you know how faithful I am to Zoe, and you know how hard she can punch, so I'm confident in you to put two and two together and come up with three. Now, WAIT!" Mari settled back in her chair as Su chased the man from the room. Eyeing Mal across the table, she grabbed her bourbon, pouring him a slug.

"Cheers, Captain Reynolds."

"Ma'am." The captain knocked it back, setting the glass on the table as he tucked into his meal. "Y'know, Mari, you're gonna make someone a happy man someday." She chuckled darkly at his words.

"I think I take the human wrecking ball I keep around, for now." She poured Mal another shot. "Speaking of good women, though, how's Inara?" Mal turned red, knocking back the second shot to buy himself time.

"She's lovely, I'd assume. I try not to bother our dear Companion too much," he shrugged, going back to his plate of food. A crash and a clang sounded through the ship, followed by a stream of cussing and a crow of victory. Su strolled back into the kitchen, apron off, boots and hat on, waving an instamatic in her hand.

"Always dignity, that one," Mari muttered as Mal snorted into his fourth shot. "Get something good there?"

"Nah, Wash squirmed and ruined it." She plopped into the chair beside Mal, throwing her feet up on the table and handing him the image. "Souvenir, Cap'n Reynolds?" Wash chose that moment to charge into the room, snatching the photo from Mal's hand.

"Mari! It's been lovely! I'll take mine to go." He pushed the plate across the table at her, a cross look on his face.

"Siddown, Wash, have a drink." Mal's words were beginning to slur as he pulled his pilot into the seat beside him, pushing Mari's bourbon toward him. "Can't be rude, now." By the time dessert came around, the two women were grinning at each other as a drunken Wash and Mal regaled them with tales of their amazing bravery and prowess as space pirates.

"Should I call Serenity now, Cap?" Su whispered to Mari.

"No, no. I'm not quite done with them yet."

* * *

"Morning, Sunshine!" Mari peered over the top of her cards, still half-dressed, her boots on the table in Mal's face as he squinted at her through bleary eyes.

"What was in that food?" he winced, sitting back and finding himself face to face Inara, who was smiling at him blithely. "And where did she come from?"

"Oh, Inara's going to be the least of your problems," Su snorted, grinning at Mal as Zoe leaned into his line of sight, a sly smile crossing her lips as she tossed two cards onto the table.

"Just waiting for my husband to wake up, Captain." Next to Mal, Wash was snoring softly. Someone had apparently seen fit to strip the pilot down to his smalls and dress him in Su's apron. It only took Mal half a second longer to realize that someone had half a mind to give him the same treatment. With a cough, he got to his feet, pulling the back of the apron closed as he realized Mari hadn't even left him his shorts.

"Looking for these?" She spun them on the tip of a finger, not even looking up from her cards. "And I'll thank you to not insult my cooking, Malcolm Reynolds. There weren't nothing in there that you can't find in your local spaceport market. There was, however, a mighty large helping of bourbon in the bottle you and Wash insisted on polishing off together." She shrugged, tucking his shorts into her bra strap with a shrug.

"Some men just can't hold their liquor." Su shook her head sadly.

"Seems like." Zoe sighed, tossing down her hand on the table. "And that's a full house." She reached across the table, holding her palm out to Su.

"Awww, I liked this shirt, too!" She shrugged out of the garish Hawaiian button down, handing it over to Zoe.

"Are you ladies actually playin' for our clothing?" Mal asked, trying to search for the rest of his effects and failing miserably.

"Zoe is playing for Wash's effects. Can't say anyone has much care for helping you win back any of yours." Inara smiled sweetly, sipping a cup of tea as she looked at Mal over the rim, batting her long lashes at him.

"Tell you what, I could see maybe sending you on your way a bit closer to decent. Su and I are just plumb tuckered out from cooking a big meal and entertaining these fine ladies here. Why don't you start cleaning up for me, and I'll see about helping you regain what little dignity you got left to regain?" Mari smiled as Mal glowered at her, the captain out of options. He stalked off to the kitchen, grumbling something or other about 'harpies' and 'his dignity'. The ladies at the table all broke into a round of laughter as Mal tried to cover his backside.

"Awww, now come on Mal," Su snorted, throwing his words right back at him, "it ain't like you got anything under that layer cake we ain't been privy to before."

"Speak for yourself," Inara laughed.

"Same here," Zoe piped in, dealing another hand to Su. It took a couple of hands for Wash to wake up and for Mal to finish up the cleaning in his ridiculous get up, the women laughing every time he turned his back. The sun was well over the horizon by the time the cowed, but fully dressed men, followed their women off the ship, muttered apologies on their lips the whole way home. On the drawbridge of  _Genrou_ , Su slung her arm over Mari's shoulder.

"I'd call that a successful dinner party, hey Chief?" Mari just chuckled, slapping the button to close the hatch.

* * *

 

_Music: A tossup! Heartless Bastard Motherfucker – Frank Turner/Ladies in the Know – Slim Cessna_

 


	18. Genrou at Odd Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Su don't sleep well

The  _Genrou_  was a small ship. A handful of bunks, a mess, a control room, a hold, a meeting space the women dubbed their 'living room', and a small garden next to the engines and sub-ethers.

They didn't need more. Not for the two of them, their mostly quiet mutt, and the occasional visitor. It was perfect for their needs.

Mostly.

Sometimes, though, in the middle of the night, it would happen that one would wake in the dark. Quiet. Listening. The small sounds of night terrors, if it was Su. Sleep talking, if it was Mari. Those times the hull was too thin, the ship not big enough. One of them would creep quiet into the night, stocking feet slipping over the metal floor into the other's room. Shoulders were shaken, murmurs of reassurance given, shaking frames tucked in.

For Su, it was always those years on the streets before she found space. The cold and the hunger. She told everyone she named the ship after a bandit, but only because it sounded mysterious and dangerous. In honesty, he'd been nothing more than a streetwise pickpocket who'd lured her away from home and family. Things had gone downhill fast, life with the red haired thug turning her into the tough, brazen outlaw she was today. Her dreams were far from pink tales of first love.

Mari's dreams were crueler still. A husband. Shared plans. She talked in her sleep, shrieking words like 'Zach', and 'no', and 'please', and 'look out'. The murmured words were worse still, an under-breath recitation of facts, the moments that had been the worst, the images that burned in her brain forever. Su never asked, but she'd heard most of it from others. A sweet, handsome man, but never knew when to stay out of a firefight.

Like any home, their ship had ghosts of their own creation. Memories created and forced.

_Here was..._

_That's where..._

_I was sitting here when..._

They loved it as one loves a home, like a family member, like memories. It protected them. It fought with them.

It was their constant.

* * *

 

_Music: The Road – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis_

 


	19. Frayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SONGFIC - Mari and Su's sad past

_I found god_

_On the corner of First and Amistad_

_Where the west was all but won_

 

The ship sat there, rusting and forgotten. Overshadowed by the top of the line short-range shuttles and advanced technology ships that had all rolled out on display earlier in the year. It wasn't that Mari particularly wanted it, but it was all she could afford. She scoured her brain as she was shown through the dark bridge, wondering if she could remember how to fly anything this old. Did they even teach her this in the Academy?

 

_All alone, smoking his last cigarette_

_I said where you been, he said ask anything_

 

She winced as she handed over what was almost the entirety of her shared life's savings, gambling every hope and dream she ever had for a chance of replacing it out in the darkness of the 'verse. Trading it all for a comparatively puny bucket of rust that barely ran, and an address snatched hastily off a fritzy vid screen.

 

_Where were you?_

_When everything was falling apart_

 

Would Su even remember her? Mari hadn't seen her in years. Just glimpses and rumors of the trouble she had gotten herself in, more than anything else. Bounties and video programs flashing her toothy grin across glowing screens. The once brilliant student, reduced to little more that a ne'er-do-well in the eyes of society.

 

_All my days were spent by the telephone_

_It never rang_

 

Mari had tried, attempting to track down the girl with Su's family. Phone calls and false leads, each passing month becoming more difficult as Su got better at the streets. Smarter. Always a step ahead of them, despite the late nights of searching until her eyes were dry and tired. Mari made friends with the less savory members of the Mars underground, her path crossing those of gangs and syndicate members alike, some helpful, some not so much. She left her information with them, hoping that they could reach Su. If they did, she never knew.

 

_And all I needed was a call_

_That never came_

 

Eventually, she gave up, the pain of it all too much. With a heavy heart, she accepted the sad reality that Su just didn't want to be found. She tried one more time, years later, handing a wedding invitation to a friend and watching as he turned the ornate envelope over in his hand. 

"No promises," he had said.

 

_To the corner of First and Amistad_

 

Su never came.

 

_Lost and insecure_

_You found me, you found me_

_Lying on the floor_

_Surrounded, surrounded_

_Why'd you have to wait?_

_Where were you? Where were you?_

_Just a little late_

_You found me, you found me_

_In the end everyone ends up alone_

_Losing her, the only one who's ever known_

 

Su couldn't resist the boy. His toothy grin, the fiery hair, his devil-may-care attitude, the tales he spun. He offered her freedom. Freedom from the structure and endless monotony of the Alliance. The rules and the strict hours and all the chains of being the perfect little honor student. The one who would 'make it' in a family that never had. She had wanted to say goodbye, at least to Mari, she truly had, but somewhere in the hushed chaos of sneaking out with nothing beyond the clothes on her back and whatever she could shove in a small duffel bag, it was all forgotten. There wasn't time.

 

_Who I am, who I'm not, who I want to be_

_No way to know how long she will be next to me_

 

Things went sour quickly. Grotesquely playful days of violence and murder falling away into sick games. Rough hands in the dark, tearing her apart slowly. Wearing her down until she didn't recognize herself anymore when she looked in the mirror.

 

_Lost and insecure_

_You found me, you found me_

 

She would spot Mari from time to time running around the city, uniform pressed neatly, always on someone's arm and chatting away happily. Shining and completely at home in her world of golden medals and accolades. A world Su didn't think she was strong enough to stay in.

It took a bit of work to stay ahead of Mari, carefully dodging inquiries and moving from safe house to safe house. She sometimes couldn't tell if it was because she didn't want to go back, or because she was too ashamed too.

 

_Lying on the floor_

_Surrounded, surrounded_

 

He would find her in the dark, hands twisting into her skin. Bringing bruises and bitter tears to the surface. Breaking her, cracking her body and her resolve. Broken bones on the bad days, black market drugs and bleeding on the worst.

 

_Why'd you have to wait?_

_Where were you, where were you?_

 

Su hadn't given it a second thought. She stuffed the same duffel she had packed years ago, filling it with threadbare sundresses and stolen bills she had been squirreling away for a rainy day. It wasn't any trouble finding an abandoned ship, one small enough for her to pilot on her own off of a combination of half forgotten memories and trial and error. She would find her own freedom.

 

_Just a little late_

_You found me, you found me_

 

It took years for them to track her down, after that first break to freedom, a worn envelope pressed into her hands a year too late. Su looked up her old friend, not expecting the obituary flashing over the screen. Widowed a year after her wedding.

 

_Early morning, City breaks_

_I've been calling for years and years and years and years..._

 

Mari sat alone, the pistol weighing heavy in her hand, tears streaming down her face as it was taken away and she was folded into rough arms. They dressed her in a white coat, her arms crossed across her front securely. The drugs in the needle hit her, numbing her into a placid docility as they put her in the back of the ambulance.

 

_And you never left me no messages_

_You never send me no letters_

 

He left Su with a screaming headache and not much else as the drugs wore off, the sound of sirens wailing outside the window. Dazed and half-naked they ripped her from her bed, railing and screaming as she was cuffed and tossed in the back of the skimmer, words like 'last chance' and 'it's over' falling from their lips in smug tones.

 

_You got some kind of nerve, taking all I want_

 

Worlds apart, two women looked at the night sky through barred windows, mourning their lost freedom and cursing the ones who took it from them. Vowing silently to the 'verse that when they got it back, they'd never let it go again.

 

_Lost and insecure_

_You found me, you found me_

 

Six months later, the late afternoon sun stung Mari's eyes as she took her first unguarded step since they had found her, full of pills and trembling in her apartment, too cowardly to end it all.

 

_Lying on the floor_

_Where were you where were you?_

 

Su fought against the restraints, hissing and spitting as they shot the tracker under her skin in her neck like an animal. Two hours later they kicked her roughly into the halfway house, tossing her bag at her as the 'reformed' dealers and whores inside peered out at her through dirty windows.

 

_Lost and insecure_

_You found me, you found me_

 

Mari looked at the address in her hand, foregoing any decorum as she let herself into the moldy tenement, a room number scratched across the page in messy scrawl. She heard the sounds of struggling behind the door, her boot finding it as she kicked the sorry excuse for a barrier open.

 

_Lying on the floor_

_Surrounded, surrounded_

 

Three women clawed at the figure curled on the floor. To her credit, Su was still putting up a fight, even as blood coursed from her nose. Little more than a ball of teeth and nails, fighting for the boots on her feet like her life depended on it. Mari dove onto the pile, her fists dispelling two of them as Su finished the third neatly with a swift punch to the face. The last woman ran from the room, bloody nose in her hands.

 

_Why'd you have to wait?_

_Where were you, where were you?_

 

Su blinked up at Mari, sniffing and spitting to the side to clear the blood from her mouth. There were a thousand things she wanted to say, had wanted to say for years. Apologies and accusations alike. But now that Mari was here her mind was blank.

"Took you long enough." A lopsided smile crossed her face as she swiped her sleeve across her face, wiping the blood from her nose onto it. Mari only laughed.

 

_Just a little late_

_You found me, you found me_

 

"Sorry. I got lost." She hoisted Su to her feet, slinging the girl's arm over her shoulder and trying not to notice how her ribs poked out under her hand as she averted her eyes politely from the scars and bruises. "Come on, let's go home."

 

_Why'd you have to wait_

_to find me, to find me_

 

The ship hummed under them as they sat in the worn leather chairs on the bridge, watching the horizon as the ship broke atmo. Mars fell away behind them in a smear of red across the atmoscreen. The two friends turned strangers buried their awkwardness in triumphant cries as they left their pasts behind them. There would be time to mend later.

Today, they were free.

* * *

 

_Music: You Found Me - The Fray_


	20. Born to Run: Phantasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari does some of Su's dirty laundry

There was always griping and grousing. Of course there was. You can't stick two grown women in a tin can together and not expect a bit of grumbling.

"Gorram outlaw."

"Tightass slave driver."

Nothing that ever stung much or left any marks, just words exchanged in tight quarters by women tighter than family. Mari had once told her first mate that the 'verse could be filled in what the wild woman didn't know about the 'tightass slave driver' she called captain on the better days when their bellies and bank accounts were full.

* * *

"Stay put!" Mari grumbled, her fingers tickling  _Genrou_  into port with a sigh as the ship shuddered to a stop, the engines clanging their protest through the hull.

"What the hell? You're just going to leave me here? Where the fuck are we, anyhow?" Su crossed her arms, digging her heels into the metal like that would actually keep Mari from tossing her hide off the ship.

"West Virginia," Mari snorted disdainfully.

"West Vir... you're leaving me on Earth!" Su slammed her fists down on the control panel, earning herself a wince from Mari.

"I'm dropping you off for three gorram days, yes! Now collect your particulars and wait off ship. Your ride will be here in thirty minutes." Su looked at Mari, eyes blazing as she huffed to her feet and stormed off down the hallway. Mari watched her go, waiting for Su to slam the thin door to her bunk before she fired up the console, chewing her lip nervously as punched in the number, waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up. The picture came on before the lights did, the blonde teen rubbing his eyes sleepily as he yawned into the vid screen.

"Mari?" Jim blinked at her, swiping a rag across the camera in an effort to clear the nonexistent dust off the lense. "It's almost two in the morning," Jim protested, stifling another yawn in his palm.

"Hey Jim," Mari smiled. Damn, if the boy wasn't shooting up like a weed. Late adolescence was agreeing with him. She did a bit of mental calculation. He would be turning twenty soon. Not that the kid had ever had much of an opportunity to simply be just that... a kid. She had been dealing with the 'responsible' half of Hawking and Starwind for the better part of ten years now. You didn't deal in caster shells and not get to know your competition. "Look, I'm sorry about the hour, but I need to call in a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Jim looked at her warily through the screen. "Jesus, you didn't toss Gene out in his skin again, did you?" He peered back into the darkness, nodding with relief as Gene's snoring made its way to his ears, assuring him that his business partner was still safe in his bed.

"No, nothing like that." Mari leaned back in her chair, listening for Su and wincing when she heard something that had once been delicate shatter against the wall. "I need you to take in Su for a few days."

"A few days? What shit did you two go and get yourself into this time?" Jim gave a low whistle over the receiver.

"Nothing. Just need to tie up some loose ends. Gonna take me up by way of Mars." It was all she had to say, and Jim nodded solemnly. "I'll make it worth your while." Mari grinned, holding up a shining, golden shell so Jim could see it over the fuzzy screen. "This is yours if you can keep her out of trouble the whole time I'm off world."

"That's a #4, isn't it?" Jim asked quietly, checking over his shoulder to make sure Gene was still sleeping. "What the hell are you really doing off world?" Mari only smiled sadly at him.

"Just some dirty laundry needs cleaning. Now do we have a deal or not?" Jim hesitated for moment before nodding once. "I'm sending you our location now, be here in twenty minutes. We should be fueled up by then." The receiver went dark before Jim could make any sort of farewell gesture, Mari flicking it off quickly as Su stormed by, punching the code in the console by the door and waiting for the metal to move away with a soft hiss. She didn't even spare a look to Mari as she hopped through the door and out onto the mostly deserted planet, tossing her bag to the ground and sitting on it heavily, a cigarette already burning between her frowning lips.

Good to his word, Jim pulled up not more than fifteen minutes later.

"Ride's here. Get in." Mari held the door for Su, ducking out of the way as the disgruntled woman tossed her bag past her head into the cab, stalking in and slamming the door. "Oi! That's not your car, and you'll do well to respect it!" Mari ordered darkly, glaring at the girl through the glass. "Keep an eye on her, Jim." Mari passed a bundle through the window to the boy in the driver's seat, tapping the roof of the car as he drove away. Su rolled down the window to scream something to the captain, but Mari couldn't hear her over the sound of the retreating engine, so she just waved as the dust trail the car left behind. When the car was out of sight, she traded the false cheer for a dark scowl, paying the spaceport director for the dock and the tank of gas before shooting  _Genrou_  off world as fast as the ship would carry her.

* * *

Mars was exactly how she had left it, glittering on the surface and teeming with filth directly underneath. She hadn't been back since she had hauled Su off this hunk of rusty iron they called a planet years ago. There was nothing much to come back to.

Until that damned broadcast.

There he was, cackling on the screen like a monster. A guttersnipe that got too big for his britches, flashing his sharp grin and bad manners all over Big Shot like he had something to prove. Shun'u Kou, better known as Genrou in the Mars underground. She hadn't given him much thought at first. Nothing beyond a wide grin as she first laid eyes on the redhead whose moniker also graced their fine ship. It certainly explained a lot about Su's proclivities toward men of the ginger persuasion.

It didn't take much work to dig back ten years or so, turning up some old, grainy surveillance photos of the two of them back when they were still young and stupid. No, there was nothing much to worry about. Not until Jet tracked her down a week later, calling her out of her ship at a nothing port in the middle of space at an unholy hour, the man pushing a small folder across the bar to her.

"We dug this up combing through bounties this week." Jet couldn't meet her eyes, and Mari knew without asking that Faye had been digging for back bounties on Su again. She opened the folder, feeling her blood chill as she read over the printout.

"Did Ed find this?" Mari frowned at the file, looking between it and Jet. He had only nodded his head solemnly at her. "I'll take care of this. Don't tell her." It was all she said, tucking the file under her arm and making her way out of the bar without another word. She had flown immediately to Earth after that, dropped Su off in the only place she thought the woman might have half a mind to stay put, and found herself docking back in Mars for the first time in almost six years not half a week later, praying it wasn't already too late.

It didn't take long to find him. It never did if you knew where to ask. Most amateurs went for the bars. The really green ones tried the friends. Mari had been doing this long enough to know that you wanted to find someone right quick, you need to find the ones who'd rather not see a loudmouth thug running through their territory.

To his credit, he didn't run when he heard the click of her gun at the back of his head.

"Genrou." She leveled the pistol at him, watching with cold eyes as he turned and stared past the barrel at her, flashing her a sharp smile.

"Not bad, hey? Said it right and everythin'." He took her in, smile growing as he placed her, recognition flashing in his eyes the moment before the bullet took the last of the light out of them. Mari watched him bleed out onto the filthy alley floor, smoking a cigarette with the ease of someone who just committed a murder and knows she'll still be able to sleep come nightfall. She regarded him, stepping back as his blood pooled toward her boots. She wanted to remember his face like this, eyes glassy and unseeing as they looked upward at a heaven he would never be arriving at. She pulled the cigarette from her lips, flinging it at his body with a sneer of disgust.

* * *

Music: Moving to Mars – Coldplay

 


	21. Born to Run: Planet Hopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Su play cat and mouse

True to her word, three days found Mari docking at the spaceport back in West Virginia. Again at an absurd hour, and again, dialing Jim on the fuzzy screen. "Work's done. Bring her back in the morning, yeah?" His face went a little red as he restrained an instinctive glance over his shoulder.

"Suuure, Mari. Um... are you going to be okay if Gene is with me?"

"Haven't gotten much sleep past few nights, huh?" Mari forced a smile as Jim's blush deepened. "No, I don't much care, so long as you bring Su back with him. Say 'round 9?" A muffled grunt hit the speaker, followed by an unmistakable cackle, and Mari outright laughed as Jim slammed his forehead against the comm, an annoyed expression crossing his face as he looked balefully through the screen at her. "On second thought, why don't you come stay the night, yeah? Least I can do. We can fetch 'em in the morning." It was her turn to watch the comm go dark as Jim slammed the receiver down. Twenty minutes later he was banging on the hull, a pillow and a blanket tucked under his arm as he smiled sleepily at Mari. Shortly after that he was sawing logs on the couch, Laika curled up at his feet.

* * *

_Su,_

_Went to sleep at the Genrou. Assholes. Be back at 0900 to fetch you back._

_– Jim_

"Oh, Jim," Su frowned, "you were such a nice boy, once." She crumpled the paper in her hand, dropping it into the trash. Pulling the sheet a bit more tightly around her, she pulled the refrigerator open to grab a bottle of juice, gulp after gulp straight from the bottle washing the thirst and sleep away from her body. Living with men always brought out the worst in her personality. An arm slithered around her waist, pulling her back against a warm body, the other hand snatching the juice out of her fingers. She sighed, leaning back against the man behind her as he finished off the bottle, neatly tossing it into the bin before burying his face against her neck to ply her with teeth and tongue. Was she really ready to go back to a captain who dropped her Earth-side every time the woman got bored with her? "Hey, Starwind?"

"Hm?"

"How do you feel about a little adventure? Fire up the  _Star_  and take off for a couple days?" She turned around, giving the red-head her best smoldering look. "Just you and me. Planet hoppin'. Causin' trouble. C'mon, what else do you have to do?" She danced her fingers up his bare chest, biting her lip and batting her eyelashes. He grinned down at her through his bangs, tossing her a lazy shrug.

"What the hell. Let's go." It was so very easy. Fifteen minutes later they were out the door, a quick glance at the clock telling Su it was 0840.

Perfect timing.

* * *

_Jim,_

_Su and I took off in the Star for a couple days. Be back before the weekend._

__–_  Gene_

"That bitch!" Mari's shout echoed through the small apartment, startling Jim as he read the letter aloud. "I go and do something nice for her, and this is the thanks I get?"

"Mari, relax! They'll be back in a few days. Gene says so right here. I'm sure you can spare a couple days resting on that bounty."

"No Jim. If I know anything about that one, she won't come back until she's good and ready. And if she feels slighted, it might be awhile. You need that idiot Starwind and your clunker of a ship. I need that girl back, if only to strangle some sense into her." Mari frowned. "We have to go after them, before she ditches him and makes off with your ship."

"You really think she would do that?"

"I just hope she hasn't done it already."

It took two days to even get wind of the  _Outlaw Star_. Apparently, Gene and Su had engaged the sub-ether drives as soon as they broke atmo. Illegal, and incredibly stupid, but it had the desired effect of getting them out of Sol space before Mari could track them.

"Still think she's not mad?" Mari grumbled, flipping Genrou back to life after the fourth false lead in as many days. They were getting closer this time. Only missed them by a handful of hours.

"Oh no, she's most definitely mad," Jim sighed, flopping face down on the console. "Then again, at the pace we're running, Gene is probably getting a bit hot under the collar too. All this flying about doesn't leave time for much else, way I figure." Mari couldn't help the barking laugh that escaped her. The kid did have a point. Mari shut down the console again, letting the ship fall silent.

"What do you say to taking the afternoon off, yeah?" Mari stood up, stretching her arms over her head with a yawn.

"What? You mean give up?" Jim blinked at her from the pillow of his arms.

"No. I mean exactly what I said. You have the right of it, so long as we're on their heels they're not going to slow down. They don't slow down, they don't slip up. They don't slip up, we can't catch 'em. Sides, Persephone's as good a place as any to stop, as far as outlaws go. We steer clear of Badger and we'll be fine," she shrugged, disappearing down the hall with a loud whistle and returning with an eager Laika, the mutt leashed and skipping around Mari's ankles. "Come on, let's bag us a few low level bounties and drink them at the nearest bar to the station afterwards." Jim couldn't suppress the smile that crept over his face.

"Aye, aye, Captain!"

* * *

The unraveling of her first life had started with a glimpse. She and Genrou had just mugged a bookie, leaving him unconscious and bleeding in a back alley. They'd put the boots to him good, fists and feet bruising and cracking bone until the man had begged them to take his money, his jewelry, his shoes, whatever. She'd gone through his pockets then, pulling out the thick wad of cash that would feed them that month, a satisfied grin coming her way from the red-haired man keeping watch at the head of the alley. It only made sense that the bookie's men would come crashing out of the door to their backs. She was only fifteen, not very good at the streets yet, and Genrou had never been very bright. Instincts kicked in, and she was chasing him down the alley, shoving the wad of cash into her bra as they broke out into a busy thoroughfare, crashing through the crowds of people perusing the street vendors.

She had lifted her head as they drew up to the intersection, Genrou grabbing her hand to drag her through as they dodged between rickshaws, skimmers, jalopies, and bikes careening around them, angry voices cursed their ancestors and fated progeny. But she was blind and deaf to it all. The moment her eyes had lifted, they had seized on one face in the crowd, locking onto it with an intense curiosity, even as her rat brain screamed at her to run.

It was Mari. On the opposite corner the girl stood tall, smiling in a freshly pressed uniform and holding the hand of an equally dressed, happy looking young man. As Genrou dragged her onto the sidewalk her feet froze, her arm jolting in its socket as she stopped to stare dumbfounded at the girl.

"Mae-chan?" The nickname from their childhood fell from her lips as she stared into Mari's face, heart hurting as she imagined what she must look like to this respectable woman who was searching through the grime for features she could recognize.

"C'mon, Su!" Genrou shouted, jerking painfully at her arm.

"Su?" Mari's eyes flashed as everything clicked into place, glancing over the girl she hadn't seen in years. Taking in the bloody boots, the cracked, red knuckles, the ratty torn clothes, the dirt and filth covering her. It had been a lean month. Su could feel the tears starting to burn hot behind her eyes at the shock on her old friends face. A swift blow to the side of her head had startled her back to reality. She hated it when he did that, but she guessed she deserved it this time. She could hear the voices of the bookie's men getting closer. As she took off running behind the man once more, she fought down the pain and anger threatening to boil over inside at the look on Mari's face when Gen-chan had hit her. It froze into her brain, the woman's horrified expression playing over and over in her mind's eye.

That had been the first crack in her old life.

On board the  _Outlaw Star_ , Su shook her head, frowning. She hadn't thought about that tiny moment in years. Where had it come from so suddenly? She walked away from the window, flopping sideways into a passenger seat on the bridge and rubbing her eyes as she sighed. It was the first time they'd been apart in near six years. She missed her captain. Her rules and commands. It had been a long four days. The first two had been fine. Gene hadn't been a bad partner-in-crime, having a taste for the same dangerous and illegal methods as she so long as they got the job done. The sub-ether drives had got them out of Sol smoothly enough, giving them a day to spend on a jungle planet holed up in a tiny shack in the middle of a rain forest, not doing much in the way of sightseeing. Heading back to the ship in the morning, Su had recognized the  _Genrou_  landing across the docking station, and they'd been off and running. Two days of non-stop flight 'cross the 'verse.

She'd quickly gotten sick of it. Mari had the brains and training on her side, but Su had an instinct born of the streets. Mari was a brilliant bounty hunter. Su was notorious for evading the law and trackers. All in all, this game of cat and mouse could be dragged into forever. A stalemate of individual talents, and they had spent the last few years learning each others tricks and thoughts. Finally, she had talked Gene into parking the  _Star_  in the midst of an asteroid belt just off Persephone, laying low as they watched the  _Genrou_  dive swiftly through atmo to land on the surface. She needed a minute to think about what to do next. She wanted to end it on her own terms, for once. If Mari was going to attempt to leave her on Earth, she would show the woman that she wouldn't just 'sit and stay', dammit! She wasn't Laika, after all. It would drive Mari mad, but she'd given Badger a little something to keep the captain occupied for a day or two. Nothing serious, just a little distraction to give her time to formulate a plan.

The clock was ticking.

Su pushed herself up from the seat, her boots ringing across the deck of the ship as she approached the central console where Gene reclined, legs up, head back, eyes closed, and every inch the exhausted pilot. She dropped lightly into his lap, ans he closed his arms around her without even opening his eyes, tucking her neatly under his chin. "You got a shower in this tin can?"

"All the way back to the left." She nuzzled her face along his jaw, nipping at his earlobe as she whispered.

"How you feel about gettin' my back for me?" At least that woke him up a little. She shrieked happily as he levered to his feet, throwing her back over his shoulder and marching for the rear of the ship.

Time to formulate... or something.

* * *

Music: Ride – Lana del Rey

 


	22. Born to Run: Clockwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badger mucks things up

Mari decided, unequivocally, that when she found Su, she was going to reunite her with that scum-sucking bandit she'd left dead on Mars.

Low-level bounties captured and brought in, she and Jim had hit the bar near the docking station, money in their pockets and the anticipation of getting a night off from the chase rejoicing in their brains. A moment to stretch their legs and catch up on things other than their missing partners antics. Halfway through their second round, however, Badger had rolled into the bar, eyeing them at their table. Mari groaned internally, too late remembering the brotherhood of scoundrels Su seemed to tap into at every planet she landed on. Why should it surprise her that Badger was the joker in her back pocket? She always got along best with the worst.

"'Ello, love. Long time no see, eh?"

"Badger," Mari sniffed, her hand closing tightly around her glass. "What a surprise."

"Ain't it though? That's me." He leaned down on the table, leering at the captain. "Full o' em, I is. Surprises, an' all."

"That so?" Mari fixed Badger with a smile that could more adequately be described as a sneer. "Whatever she's paying you, I'll double it. I got no trouble with you, Badger." It was his turn to be surprised.

"What makes you think I'm being paid to give you a little visit, eh love? Maybe I just miss your beautiful face, I did. That thought ever cross your lit'le mind?"

"No," Mari replied flatly, looking at him over the lip of her glass. "What did she say? One day, two? How long, Badger?"

"Now see, that hurts my feelings." He pulled up a chair, falling into it heavily as he slung an arm over Mari's shoulder. She didn't need to see Jim's eyes widening subtly to tell her that one of Badger's goons was standing behind her. She could smell him, unwashed and soaked in cheap vodka. She flicked her eyes around the room, checking the exits. She caught sight of another two, leaning casually against the door frame, effectively cutting off that exit. Another one hovered by a nearby window, one eye on her and the other trailing after whatever pair of legs in a short skirt happened to walk past him. With a sigh, she leaned back, tipping the last of her drink down her throat and eyeing the kitchen through the bottom of her empty glass.

The way was clear.

Without any warning, the glass came down across Badger's head, shattering against his ear and sending a trickle of blood down his cheek.

"You bitch!" Badger roared, jumping to his feet as Mari dived under the table, popping up on the other side with her hand already reaching for Jim's collar. She pulled the boy to his feet, bolting for the kitchen doors and plowing through them. She could hear Badger shouting in the bar, his accent so thick in his rage it was barely intelligible.

"Jesus, Mari!" Jim huffed behind her as they bolted past a line of confused short order cooks. She ignored him, spotting the open door in the back of the kitchen through the clouds of steam. "Pulling a stunt like that is gonna get us killed!"

"Shut up and come on!" she hollered, skidding out into the night air and directly into a pair of meaty arms.

"Goin' somewhere right quick, ain't ya?" he laughed at her as she struggled to free her arms, his grip tightening around her and squeezing the air out of her lungs.

"Mari!" Jim caught sight of her as he slid through the door. Her captor snarled at the boy, unsure whether he should risk losing her to try and grab both of them. Guarding the back alley must have been a last-minute idea. Badger obviously didn't expect them to leave this way, or he would have left more than one man waiting for them.

"Jim! Head for  _Genrou_  and hail the  _Star_  until she answers! Don't open the ship for any... mmmph!" Mari roared before the thug managed to clamp a hand over her mouth, cutting her off. Jim dodged out of sight, disappearing down the alley. Mari's captor shifted her to one arm, pulling out a gun and firing at Jim's retreating back. Mari winced as she heard shouts and gunfire erupt in the street.

"Never easy wif you, is it?" Badger stumbled out of the kitchen several minutes later, muttering darkly as he pressed a dirty towel to the side of his head to absorb the worst of the blood leaking from his cheek. She grinned at him. If he had caught Jim, he'd be gloating over it right now. By some stroke of dumb luck the teen had made a safe break.

"I'm sorry, Badger," she pouted. "I thought you liked it rough. My bad." She expected the punch to the face, feeling her nose crack under his fist with a sickening pop as blood ran down into her mouth. She figured it was only fair for the glass she had shattered across his ugly face. But the pistol to the back of the head was a surprise, and she gasped as she fell to the alley floor, stars dancing in front of her face. She watched Badger kneel down next to her through bleary eyes, hissing as he took a handful of her hair in his grimy fist, twisting her neck back.

"Think you're so witty, you do," Badger leered at her. "Think you know so much. Think I would pay you a visit for a measly pocket full of credits and a favor? No, no, my lit'le cappy." He dropped her head roughly to the alley floor, snapping his fingers with a sniff and grinning like the bastard he was as Mari was dragged roughly to her feet. "We got protocol for folk like you. Them's that like to strut about, picking off whatever face flashes up on your vid screens. No distinction," he tsked softly at her. "No class."

"Bounties on the bounty hunters, how novel," Mari coughed, trying to look unimpressed. Badger caught her chin between his fingers, tilting her face until he was looking her in her slowly bruising eyes.

"Yeah, how novel," he mocked her. "Excepting we don't take you to the clink and collect a neat lit'le sum on your pretty head. We just catch ya, then let the highest bidder shoot ya." Mari outright laughed in his face, blood falling into her mouth.

"You're full of shit, Badger." She glowered at him, not quite feeling the bravado in her words, but faking it just the same.

"Am I?" He was done playing with her, flipping a cruel looking knife out of his ratty coat and easing the blade under his fingernails to pry out the dirt beneath them. "You is, at best, tolerated 'cause of the company you keep. See, Su, we like her. Knows the rules, that one. Knows how to play nice, you follow?" He trailed the dirty knife down her cheek, pushing just enough to let the pocked metal make an icy scraping sound against her skin. "You though... never trusted you. Too unpredictable. Too noble, with all yer fancy rules an' manners. That makes you dangerous, luv." He tapped the blade against her broken nose, chuckling as she winced. "Can't have that in my backyard, can I?" Mari watched with a poorly masked sigh of relief as the knife disappeared back into his pocket.

"Badger, when this is all over, I am going to end you," Mari hissed, spitting a mouthful of blood at his feet.

"Keep tellin' yerself that, luv." He pet her on the cheek with a condescending smile, like she was some petulant child. "You might start believin' it, eventually. Probably not, though." She let herself be dragged into the waiting car, sitting patiently as a dark bag was thrust rudely over her head, praying that Jim would make it to the  _Genrou_ , and that Su would actually answer, before it was too late.

* * *

It had taken Jim the better part of an hour to get the comm working without Mari there to show him how the damn thing worked. The  _Outlaw Star_  at least had Gilliam integrated into the system. They could drive the damn thing, but the A.I. made it all work like it should.  _Genrou_ , on the other hand, was old. Almost an antique. A relic of the earlier space days, now relegated to freight hauling and collector's hangers. Everything had to be done by hand. Finally, after flipping more switches than he cared to count, he heard a hiss emanate from the comm as it sprung to life.

" _Outlaw Sta_ r! Come in  _Outlaw Star_! This is  _Genrou_ , hailing the  _Outlaw_   _Star_." He released the comm link, listening to the soft clicking of dead air in the speakers. With a growl, he slammed his fist back down on the receiver, "Goddamn it, Gene! It's Jim. Answer me!" He sniffed heavily, scrubbing at his eyes and ignoring the tears that burned there. Laika whined at his feet, resting her head on his lap and looking up at him with baleful eyes, missing her master. Jim gave her a half-hearted scritch behind the ears. "Sorry girl, I didn't mean to yell." She licked his hand, another soft whine escaping from her throat as she pawed at his leg. "Yeah, I'll try again." Once again, his fingers found the comm link, a bit gentler this time. " _Outlaw Star_ , this is Jim Hawking in the  _Genrou_. Please respond. Repeat, please respond." The crackle of dead air hissed at him, and he tried again.

And again.

And again.

* * *

"Did you hear something?" Gene's voice was muted by the darkness of the room as he threaded his fingers through Su's hair, absent-mindedly picking out the tangles. She made a sound that resembled denial in her throat, too close to sleep to really care what went on outside of the warm bed. "I think someone's trying to hail us on the comm." She whined as he pulled away, dragging the sheets off of her as he rose from the bed, padding down the hallway toward the bridge. Tugging the blankets back in place, she curled up, sliding hopefully back toward oblivion. "Su!" Gene's voice boomed up the hallway. Seconds later, he tumbled through the door, flipping the lights on as he threw on his clothes. "Gotta get up, girl! It's time for that trouble you promised me."

"What are you on about, Starwind?" she grumbled from beneath the blankets. "I need a kip, not a bar fight." The blankets were yanked from her unceremoniously as Gene grabbed her ankle, hauling her to the foot of the bed in a swift motion and pulling her to sitting with his other hand.

"Mari's in trouble. Sounds like your rodent friend went rogue on us." She was up and weeding her clothes from the morass on the floor before he could finish, hurtling from the room in not much more that a t-shirt and underwear. Gene rounded the corner into the bridge in time to see her leap into the cockpit, grabbing at the controls. "Hey! No broad's flying my-"

"Shut up and get me some pants, Starwind. If Badger's got Mari, he's not playing cricket, and we ain't got time for your driving."

"What's wrong with-" he didn't have time to finish as the girl rerouted control away from the A.I., a lurch knocking him from his feet as she accelerated at a breakneck speed through the asteroid field he had so neatly maneuvered earlier, horrid noises coming from the hull as she played bumper cars with the smaller rocks.

"Watch it lady! This is my goddamn ship!"

"Pants! Now!" she hollered, banking a hard left out of the belt, pushing the spaceships limits as she jammed toward the planet. "And send Jim these coordinates!"

* * *

Jim's eyes widened in horror as a beat up  _Outlaw_   _Star_  landed roughly in the dock Gene had sent him the coordinates to. Who the hell was driving the thing, and how drunk were they? His question was quickly answered as Su stormed from the ship's hatch, her face holding none of its usual easy mirth as she barked at a nearby mechanic.

"Skimmer!  _Ma-shong_!" The man scurried off as she wheeled back to Jim, eyes flashing. "Where did he say he was taking her?"

"I... he- he didn't. He just played dumb 'til she smashed a glass over his head and we bolted." Jim frowned. "Did you really sic him on us, Su?"

"It wasn't supposed to go down like this."

"Fucking hell, Su! What did you do to my ship?!" Gene stormed toward the pair on the dock, a clinking bag of what Jim was sure was every caster shell they owned slung over a shoulder. "What were you trying to-"

"Why do you think Mari doesn't let me drive? Now everybody calm the fuck down and get in the gorram skimmer!" Jim leapt into the vehicle as the mechanic scurried away, taking a backseat as Gene and Su both moved toward the driver's side, eyes meeting in a glare as they reached for the door.

"I'm driving. I'm not riding shotgun to you again."

"Bullshit! We ain't got time for you to be toolin' around town like someone's grandma." Gene towered over the girl, glowering down at Su even as she returned his stare measure for measure.

"Lady, you insult my driving one more time..."

"Gene, for fucks sake, shut up and get in the goddamn skimmer!" Jim shouted. "Su, you're driving, but for the love of the space, don't get us killed." Startled into action by the boy, the two outlaws traded one last glare before getting into the car, Su peeling off into the rain. A breathless fifteen minute ride later and they pulled up outside an abandoned warehouse, Su grabbing a loaded gun from Gene as she turned back to Jim.

"You stay here. Keep the car running, and keep an eye out for any thugs. Give an S.O.S. with the horn if you get anyone botherin' ya. Be ready to split as soon as we come out." She turned to Gene, face lighting up with a fierce smile. "Hope you're ready for that trouble, Starwind."

He met her grin, holding up a second weapon and winking. "I can't hardly wait."

* * *

Music: 10 Cent Pistol – Black Keys


	23. Born to Run: Devotchka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Su and Gene to the rescue!

They'd had the decency to take the bag off her head when they arrived at their destination, though Mari's eyes were so swollen it hardly mattered. Her dislocated nose ached something fierce. Why did weak little men always go for a lady's nose? She wiped the blood drying on her face onto the sleeve of her coat, sniffing gently. She tried to peer around the room, squinting at the thugs by the door and windows. Badger sat in an easy chair in the corner, smoking a cigarette as a chirurgeon sewed up the gash she'd put in his face.

"Looks like you got'n a good clop to my head, love." Badger hissed as the man pushed the needle through his skin. "Must give you a right guff to see me like this, eh? Must be right pleased with yourself. Won't be 'appy long,  _devotchka_ , not when I'm done wit you."

"Sure, Badger. Sure." She tried to sound bored, even as her heart pounded in her chest. Did Jim sound the alarm in time? How long had it been since she'd watch him sprint away from that little alleyway? Was the  _Star_  even close enough to get their signal?

"Gerroff, you gorram butcher!" Badger pushed the man doctoring his scalp away as the thread was cut, leaping from his seat and striding to the girl. He roughly grabbed at her face, squeezing her cheeks as he twisted her neck to look up at him. He smirked at his handy work. "Hope you been havin' fun, cappy. Cause it's only gonna better from 'ere." He spat neatly in her face, wiping his bloodied hands on his pants as he looked around the room with a nauseating grin. "Alright, gents, how shall we sta-" His last word was never finished as, of all the people, Gene Starwind slammed the door open, knocking the thug by it out with a swift pistol whip to the temple. The men in the room whirled on the newcomer, eyes wide in shock. Gene cocked the caster over his shoulder, opening his mouth to say something smart when he was pushed aside by the raging girl at Gene's back.

Sweeping into the room, Su shot the first thug in her line of sight, teeth bared as she swung into the fray that erupted, fists and boots flying as she fought her way to the man in the center of the room. Gene took out a thug at her back, grinning viciously as he fell, screaming, gripping at his wounded shoulder. Another thug fell as Su stomped his knee in a direction it wasn't inclined to go, screaming as the tendons and bones ground out of place. The two outlaws pushed through the men, bodies and bullets tearing the rag-tag band apart. Caught up in what she could see of the fight, Mari felt an involuntary shiver creep up her spine, muscles clenching as Badger's filthy hand slithered around her jaw in a disgusting mockery of a lover's caress, his cool blade rasping painfully across her throat.

"Enough!" Badger shouted at the group, fury gripping his fingers tighter around her chin. Badger's men froze. Gene's head swung to look back over his shoulder, gun pressed to the forehead of the man before him. Su stopped in a half crouch, hands curled in claws at her side, eyes burning into Badger where he stood in the eye of the tangle. "Oh, lit'le outlaw," he shook his head, "you should be smarter'n this by now. Ask a favor from Badger? Cor! You been gettin' soft."

"Shut your filthy fucking mouth, gopher-boy," Su snarled, slinking slowly forward toward the man holding the knife at her friend's throat. "Let go of her. I gave you your credit, fair. You keep this up and you're in for a nice dirt nap, you fuck."

"Dunno, dunno, could be, could be. But looks like I got the upper hand right now, don't it? Looks like I'm callin' the shots, ya daft  _soomka_." He pressed the blade a little tighter against Mari's throat, drawing a hiss from her as he continued to pontificate. But it had been enough. Su's eyes met Mari's for the first time since she had entered the room, and the years of gunning alongside each other kicked in. Mari threw herself back hard in the chair, knocking Badger off-balance as Su leapt on him, gun jamming into the soft underside of his chin as she struggled to drag the blade away from her friends throat, the three tumbling in a pile to the floor. Mari yelped when the sharp edge of the blade bit into her skin as she rolled away from Su and Badger's struggle, the chair awkwardly throwing her across the man's legs as he roared in frustration. Glancing up, she saw her friend straddling Badger's chest, gun in his face, their hands still struggling for possession of the blade.  _A captain's work is never done..._  Mari groaned internally as she arched her neck to sink her teeth into the soft flesh of his inner thigh. He howled in pain, finally dropping the knife for Gene to scoop up.

"Everybody get the fuck out!" The tall red-head moved to stand over Mari, gun trailing over the men still frozen in shock around them. "Your boss is good as dead now. No use in you waiting around, unless you plan on lining up to be next." As the men filed out, taking their injured brethren with them, Su dropped her gun to the floor, her fist connecting squarely with Badger's cheekbone, pulling a squeal from the man beneath her.

"You don't fuck with me, you twat! You don't fuck with her! You do as I fucking say and you sure as fuck don't fucking go rogue!" She punctuated her hoarse growls with her fists, kicking out with her booted feet as Gene dragged her back off of the man.

"Su! Jeez, girl... look to Mari. I'll tie the bastard up." Sniffing, the woman fell to her knees by her captain's side, face miserable as she untied her boss.

"I'm sorry, Chief. This wasn't what was supposed to happen." Mari groaned, sitting up, rubbing at her sore arms.

"I know, you idiot. Now shut up, my head is killing me." She peered through swollen eyes at the girl before her. "What the fuck are you wearing?" Su looked down at herself where she sat on the filthy rug next to Mari. Her boots were even muddier than normal, somehow, unlaced and flapping around her bare legs as Gene had seen fit to bring her a pair of tiny shorts in lieu of pants. The t-shirt she'd grabbed was two sizes too big, hanging off one shoulder as it screamed "HAWKING-STARWIND" across the front in neon lettering. Su chuckled, scratching at her head.

"I was in a rush, hey?" Gene and Badger stared, befuddled, as the two women dissolved into uproarious laughter until they clutched their sides in mirth.

" _Wo de ma_ , that hurts!" Mari hissed, holding her head. With an unceremonious twist, she took her nose between her hands, popping it back into what felt like its rightful place. "Always the damn nose." she sniffed, getting to her feet and offering Su a hand, hoisting her up off the floor. She glared at Badger, the venom in her eyes enough to send him scrabbling back against the wall clumsily, arms bound tightly behind his back. "Seems like I got a promise to keep." She growled at him, staring down at the bloody wreck of a man. Su had pulled out all the stops for the bastard, there was no denying that. The man was on the verge of passing out, looking up at her with large, blinking eyes as his body trembled. "Your caster, Starwind." For once, the outlaw didn't argue with her, and she felt the weight of the gun settle into her outstretched palm. "What's in it?" she asked quietly, her gaze never leaving Badger as she cocked it.

"A #9, I think. Hard to tell. Just kind of slammed it in there." She could hear the grin in his speech as she slammed the barrel of the gun into Badger's face.

"Oh, I like #9's," she purred. "You familiar with casters, Badger, my friend?" He shook his head quickly, eyes darting to hers, the softly glowing barrel in his face, and up to her eyes again. "Ahhh... let me educate you, then. You see, caster shells aren't like normal shells. They all do something different. A #3 will stun you pretty good, but it won't kill you outright. It'll just fill your body with enough radiation to make sure a couple of your limbs fall off of their own accord, and make sure if you ever manage to have any miserable offspring they come out wearing the extra parts you lost. That's a #3. A #8, well, those  _will_  kill you. Usually with fire, when they work right. With electricity when they don't. But #9's," she let the smile drop from her face, her slurred words and swallowed consonants traded for the clarity of direct, loquacious speech in her anger, "#9's will just blast a fucking black hole into the middle of your ugly little face, Badger."

"You're... you're bluffin'!" he stammered at her.

"Am I?" she countered, letting her finger pull the trigger with a soft click. His eyes flew wide, and the noise that emanated from Badger's throat as he wet himself and blacked out was damn near music to Mari's ears. "Huh, guess it was a dud." She chuckled darkly, bringing her boot down on Badger's unconscious face, listening with a satisfied smile as his nose popped under her boot. " _Hundan_."

"I can't believe the little shit didn't even realize it wasn't loaded!" Gene laughed, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty warehouse. Mari winced, holding her head as the sound rattled her already aching brain. To her credit, Su came up behind the man, standing on tiptoe to elbow him in the ribs.

"Zip it, Starwind." Mari smiled weakly at Su, holding the Caster out to Gene, who collected it and neatly holstered it at his side with a flourish.

"Never thought I'd be saying it, but I owe you, Starwind." There was no venom in her voice. She wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Never had been. She held out a hand to the outlaw, grinning through her bruises as he took it without a word. Su hung on his other arm, looking absolutely miserable. "And I owe you an explanation. Can we get out of this gorram place? I'll explain back on the  _Genrou_." Su nodded, trading Gene for Mari as she slipped under the captain's arm, helping her stumble out of the warehouse.

"Oh, thank Christ." Jim fell back in the seat, his hands covering his face as he sighed with relief.

"You did good, Jim," Mari chuckled. "Sorry to scare you like that."

"And I thought Gene was bad! Eesh!" He swung out the driver's side door, hands wrapping around her waist in long habit as he crushed her into a relieved hug. She laughed, squirming uncomfortably. "I'm glad you're safe."

"Yeah, yeah." She shrugged him off, making for the driver's side door.

"What do you think you're doing? You can't drive," Gene blustered, hands on his hips as Mari flipped the handle, opening the door and leaning heavily on it.

"Like hell I can't!" Mari challenged him, her eyes daring him to try to stop her. "From the looks of it, Su drove here. And the entire 'verse knows you drive like someone's Nana. Jim looks like he's about to pass out, and my head hurts too damn bad to wait for you to putt our asses back to the ship. So unless you got a shell that shoots out a chauffeur, get your ass in the car and sit down." She slipped into the driver's seat, slamming the door on the skimmer loudly and wrapping her hands around the steering wheel.

"You heard the Cap'n." Su grinned, hopping into the back and patting the seat next to her.

"Damn women," Gene muttered, sliding in beside her as Jim fell in shotgun, the four of them leaving the warehouse forgotten in the late afternoon haze.

* * *

A mouthful of painkillers and a clean shirt did enough for Mari's morale to let her stagger into the living room, wincing each time Laika yipped as she danced around the captain's feet. She found her three saviors in the middle of a hand of cards. Apparently, Su hadn't found the need to change, still bundled in the over sized shirt and too small shorts as she sat curled in Gene's lap, trying her best to sneak a look at his cards when he wasn't looking, and too busy trying to cheat to realize that Gene was more interested in sneaking a look down her shirt. The folder landed unannounced on the table, skidding over the pile the cards and coming to rest in front of Su. Jim scooted to the side, making room for Mari to flop down heavily as she held a tumbler of ice gingerly to her abused nose.

"Week back, broadcast came over the vid screen. Kid named Shun'u Kou." She watched Su swallow heavily. "Didn't think much of it, other than patching together a few holes in my memory. Then I got a call from Jet. Calls me out at two in the gorram morning in the middle of nowhere and hands me this." She inclined her head toward the folder, watching as Su took it in hesitant fingertips, flipping it over.

There wasn't a lot, but there was enough. Most of it she expected. Crime reports. Mugshots of a dirty, scowling, younger version of herself. Bounties posted with both her and Shun'u's names blazing across them. She slid a photo to the side, cringing at the unexpected hospital reports underneath. She closed her eyes against the memories. The times he had left her to fend for herself in situations that were over her head. All the times he had gotten too rough, too drunk. The sterile smell of the hospitals, and the pain of limping out again the times she couldn't pay for her bed when she was broken worse than she could fix with alcohol and black market painkillers. She didn't realize she was crying until a drop fell onto her hand, rolling off and soaking into the print out in her hands.

"He always said it was no fun if the girl wasn't crying, the bastard." Su sniffed, tossing the file back on the table. Mari looked at her, feeling her heart twist in her chest.

"I know what I did weren't right, and I'm sorry for that. I just didn't want to risk it. Bastard was holed up on Mars, and I thought Starwind would be enough to keep you occupied for at least long enough for me to button this up. I didn't want to risk it... taking you back there." She shrugged, fighting down a small smile and losing. "Wasn't expecting you to take off in retaliation, neither. Though, I guess I asked for that." Su sniffled once more, shaking her head as she rose from her seat in the red-head's lap.

"You ain't asked for nothin' but my help, Mae. Ever since you picked me off of that rock after the gorram Alliance stranded me on it again. All I been since then was a thorn in your side." She grabbed the tumbler from Mari, pulling off the too-big shirt, much to Jim's embarrassment and Gene's glee. Dumping the ice into it, she made a compress, holding it to her captain's bruised face. "Gene, go in my bunk and fetch me a damp, cool cloth and another shirt. Jim, budge up and hand me that pillow. Good boy." The girl busied herself making her captain comfortable, whispering to her as the men moved about following her orders, "I'll try and do better, Cap, I promise." Mari reclined into the pillow, letting Su gently press the cool compress to her face as she stroked the the ropes of her hair back into a twist at the nape of her neck. With a wink, Gene handed Mari the tumbler re-filled with bourbon, settling back into the easy chair, dragging the fussing Su with him. With Laika settled against her side, her feet tucked behind Jim's back, Mari felt a warm peace wash over her as they talked and laughed into the night, the events of the day fading in their tail lights.

In the morning they would say goodbye to the crew of the _Outlaw Star._ Jim would roll his eyes at Mari as he dragged Gene away from Su to board the bruised  _Star_ , and the two women would wave as the partners Hawking-Starwind took off back to Sol.  _Genrou_  would take them into space and Mari would walk into the living room to find Su cackling evilly as she carefully laid out all the caster shells she'd swiped from Gene. Su would tantrum over the lecture she received on 'How we Treat Our Friends', and Mari would stomp and rail at the girl when she discovered Gene had snatched one of the few awards left over from her days at Academy.

The griping and grousing would return to normal, the witty barbs and creative oaths flying as they always did in the ship.

"Tightass slave driver!"

"Gorram Outlaw!"

But they would never forgot Su's promise.

* * *

_Music: Not Your Fault – AWOLNATION_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	24. Ivan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's so crazy, that Ivan.

Mari and Wash sat side by side on  _Serenity's_  bridge, noises of appreciation falling from Mari's lips as she ran her fingers gently over the console. "Not too bad, yeah?" Wash smiled at her.

"Not at all, Washburne. Have to hand it to you,  _Serenity's_  a real beauty." Wash preened, tugging on the lapels of his shirt as Mari prodded a plastic dinosaur on the console with a fingertip. Su and Kaylee looked on from the hall, trying their best to keep quiet as the two pilots talked shop.

"Think it'll work?" Su muttered to Kaylee, her eyes never leaving Mari's back.

"Can't rightly tell." The mechanic frowned. "Wash is pretty protective of his chair. Can't say he'd take to lettin' another sit in it."

"Too bad she's so old," Mari continued absently, pulling one of the dinosaurs into her lap and letting it stomp a path to her knee. "Must limit your maneuverability some. Shame."

"What are you implying, madam?" Wash side-eyed her. Mari held up her hands under his gaze, the impact somewhat lessened by the presence of the small plastic beast.

"I'm just saying 's a shame." Her blue eyes blinked innocently at him. "It's the same with  _Genrou_. They're antiques..." She trailed off, a small grin rising to her lips as Wash made a tiny choking sound.

"Antiques!?"

"Well, yeah." Mari looked up at him, face slack in surprise. He held out his hand to her, thrusting it in her face.

"Keys," he demanded.

"What?"

"Give. Me. The keys." Mari threw her head back, laughing outright.

" _Genrou_  ain't got no keys, Wash. Why, you wanna take him up?" Her right eyebrow lifted slightly.

"You bet your shiny boots I do!" he huffed. "Antique!" The snort that punctuated the word could only be described as adorable. Mari steepled her fingertips together, resting her chin upon them as she eyed him

"Tell you what, Washburne. I propose a trade..."

* * *

Mari listened to the ship as it hummed under her, calling up Su on the comm.

"You got this thing? I ain't gonna have Mal bearin' down on me like a rabid badger cause we went and crashed his boat." Su's voice crackled back to her softly, the whir of  _Serenity's_  engines filling the empty space in the backgrounds.

"Please," she snorted. "I was born pulling an Ivan." The comm cracked dead, and Mari chuckled to herself.

"That certainly explains a lot." Her lip found its way between her teeth as she urged the firefly forward, tilting it toward  _Genrou_  as Wash maneuvered it over the field deftly. She had to hand it to him, man knew what he was about. "How's he treating you, Wash?" she called over the comm as the two raced through the barren landscape. His laughter rang back at her.

"Needs some work, but you keep a pretty good ship." She didn't miss the impressed notes in his voice, even over the comm link.

"Just make sure you leave the sub-eathers be. I'm not too keen on scraping my ship off a cliff face somewhere cause you never saw fit to bother with 'em."

"Yeah, yeah." Wash groused sourly. "Could if I wanted to."

"That so?" Mari countered.

"Yeah, that's so."

"Hoban Washburne, I could run your own ship in circles around you, should I have a mind to."

"I seriously doubt that." he snorted back at her, comm link going dark as  _Genrou_  darted to the forefront of their little race, kicking dirt into  _Serenity's_  atmoscreen.

"Ready?" Mari called Su again, face plastered in a manic grin.

"Aye, Cap!"  _Serenity_  edged forward, coaxed gently by Mari as she caught up to Wash, darting to the side and bearing wide. She wanted to make sure he could see her. With practiced ease, she flipped the boosters. The firefly lurching forward suddenly, pushing her back into the pilot's seat. She maneuvered the ship, laughing breathlessly as she overtook  _Genrou_ , pulling well in front of it.

"Now!" Mari bellowed through the comm, bracing herself as the starboard engine flipped, spinning the ship with enough momentum to make her stomach lurch.  _Serenity_  spun on a dime, flipping to face Wash as Mari kicked the thrusters into high gear, pulling back on the stick as she lifted  _Serenity_ just enough to buzz  _Genrou_ , buffering her own ship with the wake of their passing.

Both girls whooped from their respective territory as Wash's voice ghosted angrily through the ship.

* * *

Su came careening from the firefly, running to meet Kaylee as she vaulted from the  _Genrou_ , the two girls collapsing into a squealing heap in the dry grass. Wash stormed after her, eyes wide with righteous fury as his hand once again found itself in Mari's face. She tossed the keys to him with a small smirk.

"Thanks, Wash. Su's always wanted to try an' pull an Ivan." She left him blustering, joining the two women in the grass, her laughter ringing out as she dropped to their side in time to hear Kaylee muttering something about a jungle being in the way of their engine room. Wash just looked after the three, most of the bluster leaving him as he realized he had just been played by the trio. With a shrug, he jogged over, flopping down beside them. He tried to make a show of being angry, but failed rather miserably as Kaylee pressed a pilfered tomato into one hand, and Su passed a small flask into the other. "Mighty fine flying." Mari slapped him lightly on the knee, a small smile crossing her lips.

"You too." He tipped the flask back, chasing the gin with a bite of the first fresh tomato he had eaten in weeks. His eyes fell closed as it slipped down his throat, a bit of juice falling down his chin. "You too."

* * *

_Music: Cliffs of Dover – Eric Johnson/Devotchka! – Devothcka_


	25. Bandidos: Stand Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serenity's crew needs a hand

The two captains glared at each other across the table, hands folded neatly before them. Su stood behind Mari, arms crossed, lip quirked in a sneer as she looked across to Jayne, who's own glare was aimed at the fuzzy hat sitting a top Su's head.

"Miss Mari, I-"

"Captain." Mal huffed as Mari cut him off.

" _Captain._  I believe we find ourselves at an impasse." Mari smiled grimly at the man.

"I think not, my dear Captain Reynolds. Y'see, you called us in for help in capturing this fearsome bandit what stole your goods. But you never told us he had a bounty on his head. Now, my first mate and I, we gotta eat. We got your goods back, it's only fair we take the man in for the bounty. And as he's neatly locked up in the  _Genrou_  right now... " she shrugged carelessly, "I don't see where the impasse lies."

"We paid you fair for your services!"

"Pay that's only a quarter of the bounty on his head." Mari tsked, "I hardly call that fair, Captain." Mal growled in frustration.

" _Kewu de lao baojun..._  You know we're not turning him in for the bounty! Now stop talkin' in gorram circles at me and hand the man over!"

"Yeah," added Jayne, "and give me back my damn hat!"

* * *

_Three days prior..._

Su and Mari walked up the cargo hold doors into the  _Serenity_ , cautiously eyeing the shadows that surrounded them, wary at the unusual silence aboard the vessel.

"Cap'n Reynolds?" tried Mari, "Zoe? Wash?"

"Ain't no use, Miss Mari. They're all out after that bandit what stole our cargo." Kaylee's voice came in a twang from a side hallway, her boots clanging on the metal as she hopped into the cargo hold.

"Kaylee!" Su zoomed toward the girl, scooping her up around the waist and attempting to swing her in a circle, but tumbling them both to the floor instead in a giggling mess of limbs and welding goggles.

"Su! How's  _Genrou_  runnin'?" Kaylee punched the girl's shoulder as they untangled themselves.

"As best as can be expected what with the tightwad over there making me jury-rig everything. How's  _Serenity_? Cap'n Reynolds spring for the sub-ether drives yet?"

"No. The Cap'n keeps saying that's not for folk like us, it'll call too much attention." Kaylee rolled her eyes, "Just cause Wash can't-" Mari cleared her throat, drawing the attention of the two mechanics before they got too wrapped up in their shop talk and grousing.

"I hate to interrupt, but when can we expect Mal and friends back?" Kaylee gave Mari a lopsided smile and a shrug.

"I 'spect roun' sunset, Miss-"

"Captain."

"Cap'n Mari. Sorry I can't be of much more help." She pursed her lips. "Mal was right pissed when you sassed him on the comm. Said he didn't need no damn help and then run off with Zoe and Jayne after the bastards." Mari only shrugged.

"Not my fault I ain't keen to land on Whitefall. Mal know's Patience and I aren't the best of friends."

"Dunno how." Su grinned, "You both have such sparkling personalities." Mari pressed her lips together, dryly eyeing the girl.

"Well, Kaylee, I guess Su and I will go wait back on  _Genrou_. Get us on the comm when the gangs all here?" Kaylee's eyes suddenly lit up , and Mari guessed it had nothing to do with the thought of the crew coming back.

"Miss - Cap'n Mari, you got any fruit in season on your ship?" Mari suppressed a grin at the mechanic's suddenly eager face.

"Just some strawberries. Why?" She couldn't fight it and grinned at the girl wiggling in excitement before her, "You want some, Kaylee?"

"That would be mighty shiny of you, Cap'n..."

* * *

The girl had been right; Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Wash all crested over the horizon as the sun set behind them, tired, dusty, and spoiling for a fight. Seeing the two women they had summoned from the  _Genrou_  didn't do much to improve their morale. The mood in the mess was tight, even as Su and Kaylee brought food touched by the light hand of Mari's intergalactic gardening to the table. Mal glared at a space on the wall, jaw tight. Zoe and Wash whispered quietly, agitated, at the far corner. Jayne just snarled at his plate, spearing food as if he had some personal vendetta against anything that wasn't the mush they normally consumed on Thursdays.

"Alright." Mari finally broke the silence. "I'll bite, Mal. What's goin' on?" The captain sighed, throwing down his fork as he leaned back in his chair.

"We took on this  _goucaode hundan_  to help us with some grunt work around the ship while we were here on Whitefall. Nice enough boy, eager to help out. Says he wants to learn about space commerce, wants his own ship someday, the whole rigamarole." Mal's face twisted in self-deprecation. "Only it seems this boy ain't quite what he seems. Seems he don't need his own ship cause he's got his own damn gang. They swept in here first thing this morning, taking the cargo we'd just picked up at gunpoint and leaving little else. We might as well stay on here and become Patience's personal pets we don't get that cargo back." Mari nodded slowly.

"That big, huh?"

"That big." She leaned back in her chair, chewing on her thumbnail a she regarded him carefully. There was something he wasn't telling her. She could see it written all over his face.

"What's the cut?"

"We can see to throwing you 'bout third of what the cargo will bring in, plus expenses. Ammo... guns if you need them." Zoe provided. Mari and Su's keen eyes didn't miss the flinch that went round Serenity's dining table as the first mate spoke. "Not gonna' lie to you, times been lean. We can't spare much. This one hit us harder than expected."

"And all you need is a hand getting back what's yours? That's it?"

"That's it." Mal nodded, looking her in the eye for the first time since they sat to dinner. She stared him right back, eyes narrowing. "That sound like a fair deal to you, Miss Mari?"

"Captain." Mari sighed, looking around the table. "Tell you what? You stay here and enjoy this fine offering Su and I saw fit to share, and let me and my first mate have a small chat about this back 'board our ship. We'll see to getting you your answer within the hour, all goes well."

"And if all doesn't, Miss Mari?" Mari cast a glance at the shepherd. She had never trusted the man. No one in the 'verse should be that calm.

"Captain!" she sighed loudly, a touch past her tolerance at this point. "Why does that word seem to be so hard for you lot?"

"Go well, I mean. Captain." Book leaned back in his chair, lowering his fork and giving Mari what she could only ever describe as his best 'Christ Almighty' face.

" _Wo de ma_ , Shepherd! You're killin' me here." Mari frowned. "Throw in a quivering lip an' you'd make a right fine woman." Mari snorted, getting to her feet and lacing her arm through Su's, pulling her toward the door. "Within the hour, Mal." She glanced over her shoulder at him, watching him avoid her gaze and spear at the vegetables on his plate.

They could hear voices erupt behind them as soon as they left the kitchen for the hold, and they didn't sound favorable.

* * *

_Music: The Ballad of Serenity – Sonny Rhodes_


	26. Bandidos: Radical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari calls in a friend for help

"So, what do you think?" Mari's fingers were flying over the keyboard before her backside even hit the chair, calling the vid screen to life and combing through files of outstanding bounties in Whitefall. She chewed her lip as face after face of buttoned up cases flashed by her. She had to hand it to Patience, the woman kept a tight ship.

"Something ain't smelling right, here." Su growled, her voice low. "And Mal ain't avoiding your gaze cause you showed him such a good time year back he's still blushin' over it." Mari leveled her gaze at her first mate. "Whaaaaat, 's true, ain't it?" Su shrugged, tossing her hands behind her head with a grin.

"I don't like going into this blindfolded." Mari growled. "I ain't gonna put us in harm's way cause Mal wants to hold onto something he don't feel like sharing. I played that game before, and I don't much care for it."

"Want me to see what I can weasel outta Jayne?" Su offered. Mari chewed on her lip a bit, considering the thought.

"No. Even I wouldn't inflict that on you. Kaylee, though. You two seem to have a good rapport. Let's try digging that angle. Go clean out the strawberry crop. Got some fresh cream too, might as well bring it. Outta loosen her lips some."

"All of them?" Su whined. "I thought we were savin' those."

"Yeah, well..." Mari sighed. "Tell you what, this pans out, I'll put us in Blue Heaven for a week after, let you an' Swanso overhaul whatever you want."

" _Shoudao_ , Cap'n!" Su's eyes went wide at the prospect, the woman bouncing to her feet and taking off down the hallway, Laika snapping at her heels happily. Mari watched her go with a chuckle, letting her gaze fall back to the screen. She dug where she could, looking for something, anything, that would clue her in, but there was nothing to find.

"Shit, this is gonna cost me." she growled, pulling up her mail and firing off a message. It took less than a minute for the girl's face to pop into view, hacking onto her desktop and grinning at her like a child possessed.

"Mae-Mae!" Ed bounced happily, pushing the strange, wire covered glasses she wore back on her head and into her wild red mop of hair. "You rang, my lady!"

"Ed! I need a favor! Can you help me out?"

"Favor! Favor! What do you need Ed to find for you?" she piped cheerfully, bouncing in her seat. Mari could hear Ein barking in the background, and spared the pair a smile.

"I'm out on Whitefall. Anything strange been flying over the 'net out here? 'Specially anything about a whole bunch of cargo what's just come in?"

"Let Ed look." Mari watched as Ed slammed her glasses back down, her face on the screen dissolving into hundreds of little smiles chomping their way through the data that flashed by faster than she could parse it. The mic was still live, and she could hear Ed cackling with glee in her element, 'ooooh's' and 'uh-oh's' punctuating her mirth as she hacked into information Mari couldn't even dream of finding on her own. One of these days, she had half a mind to lure the wild hacker onto her ship. "Bingo!" Ed sang, appearing on the screen once more.

"What did you find?"

"Patience! Patience!" Ed held out her hand solemnly.

"Ed, I'm kind of in a hurry." Mari protested.

"No! Patience, look!" Ed hit a button, and footage of a mess of cargo being loaded into one of Patience's personal warehouses flashed to life. Mari squinted at the feed, watching the piecemeal crew on the video. A nervous looking kid with a scar across his cheek was barking orders, waving a gun around and looking over his shoulder every two seconds as if he expected hell to come chasing after him.

"Ed, can you tell me who that is? The one with the blue hair?"

"Heee, blue hair! Blue hair like Mae-Mae!" In a flash, a readout flipped up next to the looping video. Mari whistled, low and long. The kid had an enormous bounty on his head off planet. Enough that she could actually make good on the promise she just made her first mate. She printed the file before Ed could capriciously change the screen for something she deemed more interesting, watching the paper feed out of the ancient printer and into her waiting hand.

"There's gotta be something here Mal doesn't want me to see."

"Mal?" Ed tipped her head sideways, blinking at Mari. Mari couldn't stem the wicked grin that began crossing her face.

"Yeah, Malcolm Reynolds." She couldn't still her curiosity, it was just too tempting. "What can you find on him and the  _Serenity_?" Ed began humming a little tune as she clacked away happily, her avatar smiles combing through the data, their digital expressions changing as they found information worth keeping or not worth consideration, filing it in some pattern of chaos only Ed understood.

"I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from meeeee! Bingo!" Several more readouts flipped up on the screen. "Bounty, bounty. Dangerous friends, Contrary Mari." Ed giggled, wiggling her fingers at the captain.

"Bounty, huh?" Mari looked it over after she set it to print. It was small, as far as bounties went. A neat sum, but nothing worth going out of her way for. She'd seen bounties like these before. Mostly from folks who managed to piss of the Alliance. Captain Reynolds and his first mate made no secret of their allegiance to the Browncoats. That was usually enough to get under the Alliance's skin. Something clicked in her brain just then, just enough to prompt her to ask.

"Ed, this Kouji guy. He didn't fight in the War of Unification, did he?"

"Don't know." Ed frowned, fingers flying back into action. "Let me lookie see, here." By this point, Mari had learned better than to try and rush it, sitting back and worrying her thumbnail with her teeth while Ed combed the far reaches of the net. "Don't know, Mae-Mae." the red head huffed. "All I can find is this." She clicked a button, and Mari squinted at the blurry photo of a battlefield. She thought she could make out a younger Malcolm Reynolds and the lovely Miss Zoe Washburne, pre-Washburne, in the picture, their faces smiling back at her through the flickering glow, along with a handful of other men and women. One of whom looked remarkably like the bandit, minus the blue hair and scar.

"Bingo!" Mari smiled darkly. "Got you, Reynolds."

"Is that all?" Ed queried, pulling Ein into her lap as she tilted her head to the side.

"That'll do me, Ed. Thank you! I owe you a whole bag of those little sweets you like next time I swing by Earthside, ok?"

"Yayyyyy! Over an' OUT!" Ed saluted before the screen went dark, leaving Mari alone with her printouts.

"Su!" Mari bellowed into the ship as she shuffled through the papers in her hands.

"Wha?" Su's head popped out of the hallway, a half eaten strawberry hanging out of her mouth.

"I think I found what our dear Mr. Reynolds was hiding." Mari held up the mug shot for the boy, carefully watching Su's face for reaction. The girl was awful with names but rarely forgot a face. Mari hoped she might have more knowledge of the man than the web could provide.

"Kouji?" Su looked confused, pulling the strawberry from her mouth. "What does he have to do with Mal?"

"You know this rustler?" Su shrugged, brow furrowed in thought. "

I mean, yeah, he ran with the Reikaku gang on Mars for awhile. Funny guy. Had some truly bizarro character traits, but was kinder than most... ran off right 'fore I nabbed my first ship."

"He have the scar then?"

"Yeah, but it was fresher. Cap, I don't get it. Kouji was a weirdo, a petty crook without much going on upstairs. That he's here, let alone snatching Mal's cargo... don't make no sense, Chief." Mari flipped through the papers again, pulling up the sheet on his bounty. Su gave a low whistle. "Damn." Su shook her head "He had me bamboozled."

"Looks like you're not the only one. I'm willing to bet Mal wants the boy more than the cargo."

* * *

"Bout damn time." Jayne grumbled as they sauntered past him into the hold of the  _Serenity_ , "Hours practically up."

"Shut up, meat head." Su dismissed him with a wave of her hand, trotting off to the engine room with her picnic basket. "Kayleeeeee! I stole us dessert, girl!"

"Where's Mal at, Jayne?" He leered at Mari, not-so-subtly flexing his arms. "What's it to ya?"

"Ugh." Mari curled her lip at the suggestion, turning to walk toward the mess.

"Wait! I was just foolin'." the man sulked, "Mal's in his bunk."

_Ugh_. She repeated the sentiment internally, turning down the hall to the sleeping quarters.  _Nothing like neutral ground._  She knocked on the open hatch to his room before sliding down the ladder into the bunk. Hitting the ground to hard, she stumbled a moment, feeling strong hands steadying her from behind. Mari turned, a small, traitorous shiver caressing her spine as she gazed up at Mal's cross face.  _Whoa, girl,_ she thought _, a little too long between bunk mates if Mal's angry face is gettin' at ya..._ She gently pushed him back, clearing her throat. "

Half the money you bring in from the cargo. And Su's pick of your guns and ammo." she stated without preamble. "And you, Zoe and Jayne come with us, on my lead. No cowboyin' around."

"Y'all have to work out the guns and ammo with Jayne and Zoe. I can agree to the rest," he nodded slowly before continuing, "but he comes back to the  _Serenity_  alive, y'hear?" Mari narrowed her eyes at him, searching his face.

"What's it matter?" Mal cracked a mercenary grin at her, and the shiver rallied its attack on her insides.

"Well, now, that's a  _Serenity_  security secret, ain't it, Miss Mari?"

"Captain." she snapped.

"Captain." he purred back.

_Goddamnit..._

* * *

_Music: Sci-Fi Wasabi – Cibo Matto_


	27. Bandidos: A Right Fine Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kerfuffle! Serenity gets duped.

"I don't see the big fuss over this guy. He's just a bandit, hey?" Su passed the flask of engine-fermented liquor back to Kaylee, reaching for a strawberry. The younger mechanic shrugged, taking a surprisingly big belt out of the flask.

"Captain seems to have a powerful rage for him." Kaylee offered. "Zoe too. Heard some whisperin' 'bout the unification, somethin' about fixin' him better this time. Thought I heard 'em mention an ol' friend but..." she shrugged again, "I just keep my mouth shut when the captain gets in this mood."

"Wish my Cap had that sense. She enjoys poking that bear when he's good 'n' angry far too much, if'n you know what I mean." Su grinned at the gaping girl at her side. "Why Miss Kaylee, don't tell me you never noticed the magnificent specimen commanding your ship?" Su gave an appreciative, full-throated chuckle. "Bet that man bangs like a screen door on a windy day."

* * *

Dawn found the five outlaws on their bellies, crawling through the low grass on a bluff just above the valley housing Patience's private warehouses. Mari peered through her rusted spyglass at the sentinels, taking careful time to examine each man's face.

"None of them appear to be our man."she mused aloud, "Might make it easier."

"No." Mal snapped. "I want him, too, 'member? Alive."

"Ain't what we bargained, Chief." Su's voice came low from between Zoe and Jayne.

"She's right. You asked for help gettin' your gear back. You never said you wanted our bounty skills." Mari turned to gaze into Mal's deliciously stony face. "You want more, you gotta tell us at the get go. Our services for man-hunting ain't cheap. Way more than the pittance we'll make on your cargo."

"O _, zhe zhen shi ge kuaile de jinzhan_. Can't never trust you damn women. Fine. We'll figure it out, but get me that damn bandit."

"I'll get you your damn cargo." Mari hissed at Mal. "I'll get it 'cause that's what we agreed upon. If you shut your gorram mouth and let me do my job, maybe I'll look to seeing about your boy, Mister Reynolds. Now,  _bizui_!" She could practically feel his fury radiating off of him, his mouth opening and closing silently with impotent rage. She smirked softly, dropping her gaze back to Su for a split second and watching the woman nod back, eyes flashing. "Now let's go before you blow our cover!"

The next thirty minutes went so close to perfect that Mari and Su couldn't have planned it better if they had stayed up all night trying. It had, in actuality, only taken them half the night. It wasn't a complicated plan, which made it a good one in their opinion. Most of it involved getting Mal riled up enough to actually blow their cover, something Mari was incredibly good at when she set her mind to it. Sure as sunshine, the second they broke horizon, Mal turned a mutiny on her, conveniently forgetting their agreement and usurping command in a childish fit of pique. Mari tagged on his heels, barking in his ear and firing shots, giving Su enough time to slip away from the party, circling around back unnoticed.

She and Mari had been doing this too damn long for anything to surprise them anymore. Within minutes of gunfire erupting inside, the first coward came running out the back door, finding his foot caught on Su's outstretched boot and measuring his length in the dirt at her feet as she thrust her pistol into his face, smiling sweetly.

"Well, hello there." she grinned at him, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him roughly to his feet as she slammed him against the side of the warehouse. She waited a moment, hand clasped firmly over his mouth as a handful more of the piecemeal crew came tumbling out the back exit. His eyes followed them nervously, and she dangled the pistol in his line of sight. "I'd hold my tongue if I were in your boots." He nodded, eyes wide as he watched his team take off on the skimmers parked in the back, kicking up clouds of dust as they trailed off.

"Please, I don't want no fightin', Miss. Please!" He looked down the barrel of Su's gun, swallowing heavily. He was no more than a kid, by the looks of him. Barely more than sixteen if she had to place a guess. Young, dumb, and scared. Just how she liked them.

"Ain't you I want." She cocked the gun with a soft click, her grin going dark as she looked at him. "Where's Kouji holed up? An' you better be straight with me or so help me."

* * *

No more than ten minutes later Su slid into Mari's shadow as the captain leaned heavily on the doorframe, watching Mal, Zoe, and Jayne dig through the cargo, pulling tarp after tarp off of previously emptied crates.

"Looks like these pups were bamboozled. Right shame, that." Mari sighed softly, checking the sight of her pistol before holstering it. A small red stain was blooming across a tear in her shirt over her arm.

"Cap'n?" Su raised an eyebrow, her eyes flicking quickly to Mal and his crew before returning to her injury.

"Nothing they did. I got sloppy, 's all. Just a graze." she shrugged. "Some little shit tagged me before he ran to save his own skin." Su grinned.

"About yea high, sandy hair and arms he ain't grown into yet?"

"That's the one." Mari chuckled.

"Sang like a gorram canary."

"Good. Soon as we tuck these pups back on ship we'll see to that." Mal whirled around at the chatter, too far to hear them as they whispered, but close enough to know Mari was talking to someone that wasn't him or his people.

"You ladies care to tell me why someone saw fit to repack my cargo and leave the empty boxes for us?" He was bellowing in Mari's face in half a heartbeat, pulled up to his full height and staring down at her darkly. She stared back up at him, her left eyebrow twitching to a raised position.

"Can't say I rightly know, Mal. This ain't what I planned for." she growled at him, lifting herself to her toes to gain a few extra inches as she reached for his collar, dragging his face down to her height as she snapped at him. "Someone had to go play cowboy and fuck everything up!" She winced as he grabbed her roughly around the arms, squeezing her fresh gunshot wound under his fingers as he shook her more roughly than was necessary.

"Hands off the Cap'n, lady." Jayne's pistol clicked to life in his hand as he leveled it at Mari. She released Mal's shirt, holding her arms up best she could with Mal's hands wrapped around them.

"Don't want no quarrel, Jayne. Seeing as I've already been shot  _once_  today." Mal's face softened, and he released her, looking to the red stain on his palm.

"Well, ain't this is a right fine mess." Mal sighed, the ire draining out of him. "Ain't nothin' left for us here today, and we lost the element of surprise."

"You lost that well before today." Su muttered.

"We'll rally back on ship. We'll have Simon take a look at you, too." He turned his eyes to Mari's arm, trying to reach for it so he could get a better look at the damage. She backed away from him.

"You issuing orders, Reynolds? Last I checked you were no captain of mine." Mari sneered at Mal, crossing her arms defiantly in front of her.

" _Nimen dou bizui!_ " Zoe's voice echoed off the walls, silencing the argument. "I got no time for this!" she sighed, eyeing both Mari and Mal with enough heat to melt ice. "Back on  _Serenity_. Now."

"You heard the woman." Mal grumbled, turning for the warehouse door. Jayne followed, keeping his gun trained on Mari until he retreated out into the light. Zoe crossed Mari and Su, stopping to level them with a stern gaze, her eyes dropping to her arm.

"You should let Doctor Tam take a look at that. Don't know where these bastards keep their ammo. Don't want that arm falling off."

"Translation, you ain't letting me out of your sight if you can help it?"

"That's about the right of it." Zoe smiled, the mirth never reaching her eyes and her fingers hovered dangerously closed to the pistol she kept slung low on her hip.

"I'll come with you without argument. But you let Su back on  _Genrou_. We got a ship of our own needs looking after, and we ain't got a shiny little crew keeping the engine warm while we're away. I'm more than enough collateral to keep you happy until you get your mess sorted. Su knows better than to kick up anything while I'm off ship." Zoe hesitated before nodding once.

"Fine."

"Su, see to Laika for me." Mari ordered in her best 'captain's voice', trying to keep her smugness from creeping in and blowing their cover. Su made a show of being annoyed about it, stomping out of the warehouse in a huff ahead of them. She couldn't stop the small smile that crept onto her lips. If things kept up at this rate she and Su would be off world by nightfall, hopefully with a neatly tucked up bounty in the hold.

* * *

"Nice little flesh wound you've got there." Simon glanced up at Mari from where he was hunched over her arm. "I'll stitch it up, but it's going to leave a scar."

"Fine by me, doc." Mari sighed. Simon busied himself prepping the little procedure, carefully laying out tools and ungents on the little bedside tray.

"I'll never understand why a woman like you runs around with..." he trailed off, suddenly realizing he was speaking aloud. Mari's eyes followed Simon as he moved to sit on the low stool beside the table, carefully pulling on the sterilized gloves.

"With?" she questioned. "With who? Spit it out, Simon!" He shook his head, knowing that path would mean nothing but trouble.

"My opinion doesn't really matter, does it? I just find it odd that a woman born and bred in one of the finest military families hides herself in the middle of... all of this." Mari's gaze darkened throughout Simon's little speech, becoming an all out glare as he trailed off.

"Look to yourself, Doc. We all have our reasons for things." she snapped at the man, sneering at his snobbishness. "The company I keep suits me just fine. Better than the hypocritical wealth that has what passes for manners these days." The doctor reddened, to his credit, bowing his head to begin the procedure.

"This may pinch..."

* * *

Su finished packing the last of the gear into the dark canvas bags, slipping into the dark, hooded coat shed pinched from Mari's room. As the sun started to set, she climbed the stairs to the bridge of the ship, absentmindedly petting the dog that leapt excitedly by her side.

"Go on Laika, get in the hold. Auntie's gotta make a call." She slid the door shut behind her, closing the whining mutt out. Sitting before the comm, she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

It was time to get her face on.

* * *

Some days, he really wished he could just sit back and read his comics or reenact various moments of history with his action figures. But no. Wash'd signed on for this fair, committed fully when he'd married Zoe (because seriously? How had that happened? How could he even think of turning that down?), and now here he was, dodging bullets on a regular basis.

Or in this case, fielding calls from shrieking, hysterical young women.

"Slow down, Su! What's wrong?" She let out a wracking sob, moaning balefully into the comm.

"Something's wrong with Laika! She's seizing and foaming at the mouth - the damn bandits musta poisoned her. Send the Cap'n over quick, Wash!" She dissolved into incoherent sobs as Wash fled from the room, heading for the medical bay. In his hurry he missed the grin that cracked Su's mask of sorrow just before the comm blinked into darkness.

* * *

_Music: Paddywagon Turban – Reverend Glasseye and his Wooden Legs_


	28. Bandidos: Gone Fishin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Su catch a Kouji

"And you just LET THEM GO?!" Zoe watched her husband wince as her voice snapped into a higher range. Served him right. "You didn't grab one of us to go with 'er?"

"Zoe, baby, that's what I'm doing now!" Wash's helpless protestation faded as she ran from the mess, hand already flying to her pistol. But it was too late when she got there. A note in Su's messy scrawl was pinned to the hatch, flapping in the warm breeze that had come on with the night.

_Gone Fishin'._

It was punctuated with a smiley face.

Zoe cursed roundly, stomping back to the ship with the paper crumpled in her hand.

* * *

It didn't take long to find the brothel Kouji was staying in. Whitefall, run so tightly by Patience, was laid out in a chaotic pattern due to its fractal like growth, but was almost logical in its sectors. The "naughty" element occupied a small outpost town, a teeming strip of saloons, gambling parlors and whorehouses. Mari heard Su suck a sharp breath in and closed her eyes. Mockeries of the old west as were found on Whitefall always got Su's blood racing. If she wasn't careful, the girl would be drunk on gin and inciting a brawl over a cheated hand of poker in minutes.

"Covert. Operation." Mari ground out through her teeth, taking care to keep quiet so as to not give away their spot in the shadows behind the house of ill-repute. "I swear by Malcolm Reynolds' pretty floral bonnet we'll come back for vacation sometime." Su's voice came back to her in a whisper.

"You're a real mensch, cap." The women crept forward in the darkness, shrouded in black as they held their weapons steady in the night. Creeping forward they climbed up to the porch roof, silent silhouettes peeping through sheer curtains into each room. Su stopped Mari with an extended hand, finger rising to her lips. On the wind came a rough voice, attempting to... sing? Mari supposed was the right word for it.

" _Shanari shanari machi o ikeba... donogata no me hitori jime... nante itsumo tsumi na watashi... aware heart kanashi bari..._ "

"What the hell is he squawking?" Mari's brow wrinkled as she listened to the off-key tune. Su grinned, creeping closer to the window the sound was coming from.

"You don't wanna know, Chief." Peering through the window, they could just make out the blue haired man reclining in a soaking tub, a cowboy hat on head as he smoked a cheroot and soaped up. A purple-haired barmaid flounced into the room, depositing a bottle of bourbon on the tub side table. Naturally, Kouji dragged the woman into his lap. When in Whitefall... Looking to her first mate, Mari nodded, the two women slipping through the open window while he was distracted with the giggling, wriggling girl.

"Kouji-chan." Su tripped out in a weird clipped sing-song. "Come out to plaaaay." The barmaid shrieked, hurtling from the tub and across the room faster than the  _Genrou_  could ever hope to go. Mari grinned at the man's surprised face, his arms still held around an imaginary handful of girl. And then he started... rambling, she supposed?

"Hey, Kouji, what's going on here? Dunno Kouji, I ain't never seen these broads before. Well whadda they want? I dunno, why don't you ask them. Maybe I will – Hey, broads, whadda ya want?"

"See what I mean?" Su muttered at Mari, never taking her sights off the cowering barmaid in the corner.

"Riiiight." Mari cleared her throat, "Look, Kouji, we're haulin' you in for bounty. You got a good price on your head in the Sol system, and we'd be remiss to pass up the opportunity to pad our retirement fund. I'm sure you understand." He pursed his lips, quirking his head to the side.

"You Reynolds' friends?" The sudden change of style took Mari by surprise. She blinked in confusion, and he took it for an affirmation, launching back into his rambling style once again. "Kouji, don't tell them about the loot. But Kouji, maybe these dames will be more forgiving if we hand it over? What about Patience? What ABOUT Patience? Hey dames, you wanna know where Reynolds' loot is hidden?"

Mari could almost glean it now - his mouth was crazy, but his eyes were sharp, looking for hints as he rambled everything away. But whose side was he on? Who was he with? What was he playing at? Only one way to find out. She nodded slowly.  _You're on, my blue-haired friend._

"Yeah. Take us to Reynolds' cargo."

"W-what?!" Su exploded, fingers tightening on her six-shooter, making the barmaid shriek again. "Are you MAD, Cap? We ain't got no time to be running around for Mal." Kouji's eyes turned to Su for the first time since he'd found a gun in his face.

"Wait, Kouji, you know that one. You're right! It's Genrou's girl." Mari watched as his eyes danced over Su's face, his voice taking on a conspiratorial bent, "No, no, can't be, not no more, she was already too smart for that at 15- Hey lady, do I know you?"

Su's frown was legendary as she snapped "No!" at the man, eyes turning back to the woman, hair swinging to cover her face. He looked back at Mari.

"Guess not. Well, you're gonna need horses, fast ones, if you wanna get Reynolds' loot back before they sell it off." Mari nodded.

"Fine. But you're leading the way."

* * *

Another morning. Another bluff. Another group of outlaws watching over another group of storehouses.

"There better be some gorram loot in 'em this time." Su grumbled.

"Oi, Kouji, this one never stops whining. I know, Kouji, you think she would have grown some backbone since getting off that rock she spawned from. Well, you know what they say, you can take the girl off Mars but you can't - OOF!" Mari's elbow shut the man up as they hunkered down the ridge, back to the horses. The three formed a huddle, Kouji sketching a rough plan on the ground.

"Right. So what are we gonna do about this thing, Kouji? Huh. I dunno Kouji, why don't you ask the broads? Do you think that's a good idea, Kouji? Seems risky to me-"

"First person, asshole!" Su snapped.

"Oh, well, she's a little snarky, ain't she Kouji?" Mari growled.

"All three of you shut up. Here's how it's gonna go down..."

* * *

_Music: Frontier Psychiatrist – The Avalanches_


	29. Bandidos: Gone Fishin'Trio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang runs a rather musical heist

Patience walked alongside her sergeant-at-arms, peering at the crates as the man checked each box off his list. Reynolds' loot proved to be a more than adequate haul on top of the usual confiscated cargo that passed through the port.

"I believe that's everything, Patience." The man snapped the book shut, looking at her with a satisfied smile. "That Kouji proved to be a decent addition to our team."

"For all his crazy talk he sure knows how to run a heist, I'll give you that. Reynolds'll think twice about running his cons on my planet next time." she smirked, taking in her full warehouse. It was gonna be a good year. Without warning, a sharp whistle pierced the dim light of the warehouse, creeping up the nape of her neck like nails on a chalkboard, her hair standing on end. "Hey! Whoever's making that ruckus better cut it the hell out!" She swung toward the noise, only to turn around again as the sharp rhythmic tap of metal on metal came from behind. "Who's there?!" The men around her turned on their heels, spooked, their eyes wide and guns at the ready. "Go on, show yourself!" A woman' s voice ghosted through the warehouse, echoing off the metal walls as she sang, low and gravelly, words that came from a time before even Patience could remember.

 _"The Shankill Butchers ride tonight._ _You better shut your windows tight"_ As the first voice died out, a hopelessly off-key male voice chimed in, continuing the words as it circled to the left, a shark trailing its bloody meal. A vulture circling the dying desert creature.

 _"They're sharpening their cleavers and their knives._ _And taking all their whisky by the pint"_ A stomping pair of boots approached, keeping time as their owner chipped in on the lyrics, feminine and raspy, completing the triangle of song that haunted the warehouse.

_"Cuz everybody knows i_ _f you don't mind your mother's words a_ _wicked wind will blow..."_

"GO." Patience hissed to her men. "I want them on their knees." The men scattered, slipping between the crates to chase the shadows that loomed large on the walls. Horrible children's shadow puppets creeping in to Patience and her treasure. A woman's voice let loose in a dreadful cackle, a body hitting the floor with a thud that echoed through the warehouse. The song continued, the percussive beat of their feet and weapons breeding fear as bulb after bulb was shot out in time, the rain of the glass creating a strange melody that caused the men to cry out like children in the wake of their worst nightmares. Low, eerie laughter boomed through the space, bouncing off the walls to haunt her ears. The three voices united in one, singing a harmony she knew she would never leave her mind. The muffled thuds of bodies increased, the men giving little yelps as they met their ghostly stalkers, the whistles circling in closer, echoing louder.

 _"The Shankill Butchers wanna catch you..."_  came the first vpice, low and gravelly.

"What do you want?!" Patience yelled out, her voice cracking into a shriek.

 _"The Shankill Butchers wanna cut you..."_  came the second voice, squawking.

"Ain't no one laughin'! Take what you want 'n' git out!"

 _"The Shankill Butchers wanna get you..."_  came the last voice, rasping.

Nothing but silence met her ears. The men were gone, downed by the spooks that had swept into her warehouse without warning or reason or sense. What did they want? Who were they after? The voices swelled, finishing the a bone-chilling harmony.

 _"Awake."_ Suddenly she realized that she was alone in the dark. A click sounded beside her ear. Stomach clenching, shivering uncontrollably, she turned, hands reaching for the sky. A small flame lit the blue eyes slicing out of the darkness at her, the cat-like grin tying her insides up in knots.

"A mighty fine mornin' to ya, Patience."

* * *

The rock sailed through the air, skittering down the hull with a small clang.

"Oooooh, nearly there, Cap!" Su teased as the pebble missed its mark. Mari tossed another rock up and down in her palm, winding her arm back and letting it sail, a small smile curling her lips as it cracked solidly against the thick glass above the bridge.

"That outta get Wash's attention, at the very least." Sure enough, not more than ten minutes, and several rocks, later, Captain Malcolm Reynolds and entourage came tearing down the hatch, lips trailing a colorful string of profanity until they caught sight of the two women sitting on top of their stolen cargo, smoking a shared cigarette and laughing at the bedraggled crew they just hauled from their bunks, half-dressed and fuming.

"Hey Zoe!" Su waved, handing the cigarette back to Mari as she let the smoke curl out of her nose in a sarcastic snort of mirth. "We done caught you some fish!"

"Well I'll be damned." Jayne muttered, running up to check that the crates were full, pushing Su out of his way with a shoulder as she lounged across them.

"This about all you lost, Mal?" Mari slapped one of the crates playfully, hopping off and dusting her hands on her pants as she sauntered up to Mal, smile wide but eyes cold. Mal glared back at her, his eyes flicking to the cargo and back again.

"And how'd the two of you manage all this by your lonesome?" he intoned darkly. "Two girls against a whole posse of Patience's men. Odds don't stack in your favor."

"Oh, we had help." She walked a small circle around him, her voice light and teasing. "Couple of nice gentlemen lent us a hand." Mari's lip quirked up in a smile. "Probably should charge you for his help too, but we'll just split it fifty-fifty and call it a day, shiny?"

"A third." She stilled in her circuit, hands clenching into tight fists at her side.

"That wasn't the deal, Reynolds." She narrowed his eyes at him, smile replaced with a snarl and she turned to face him.

"Our deal was you bring us the boy alive on top of the cargo." He kept his voice low, matching her gaze, trying to save face as the playful game turned dark, both captains staring daggers at each other.

"No, Malcolm Reynolds. Our deal was you follow my lead, do as I say, and I might see to your man. Seeing as I could set a clock by your sudden, but predictably inevitable betrayal, you didn't keep your end of the bargain!"  _Serenity's_  crew looked on, watching the two growl softly to each other in the late morning sun. Kaylee shifted uncomfortably, leaving the pack to slink over to Su, pushing Jayne out of the way.

"What's your Cap'n on about?" she whispered to Su as she watched her own captain, ready to jump to her back should Mari need her.

"Mal ain't been straight with the lot of ya. That boy Kouji got a mighty fine bounty on him, on top of the world of hurt your Cap'n and first mate want to unload on his head for some shit he stirred up back during the war." Su glared darkly at Mal, pointedly ignoring Jayne's annoyed growl as she clued the mechanic in. "Didn't see fit to clue us in, and got my Cap'n shot on top of the rest. We ain't too keen on that kind o' treatment." Kaylee's eyes went wide as she watched the conflict unfolding in the dust.

"Is that why she was visitin' with Simon yesterday?" Su nodded darkly, flicking her gaze back to Kaylee. The mechanic looked a touch embarrassed. "I thought... nevermin' what I thought."

"On the ship, NOW!" Mal roared, bearing down on Mari in a fury. "I ain't having a shouting match out here with my crew looking on. We'll sit down, talk this out like reasonable folk."

"As you wish, Captain." Mari smirked up at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder defiantly and following him onto his ship, giving a mocking salute to the collection of scowls, wide eyes, and slack jaws cast in her direction by  _Serenity's_  crew. "Su, come on. Mal wants to finish this thing where folks can't cotton to what he's up to!" she called casually, her voice carrying in the still air. A soft chuckle escaped her lips as his shoulders twitched.

"Aye, Cap!" Su vaulted off the boxes, grabbing the monstrous knit cap from her coat pocket and fitting it snugly on her head, laughing brashly as Jayne snarled at her, spitting into the dry dust. "Come on, Spanky. Mal's probably gonna want his guard dog there to look all fierce and whatnot." She trotted off to Mari's side, sparing a glance over her shoulder as Jayne came huffing after the two, the four of them disappearing into the cool of the ship.

"Um... right. What just happened?" Wash sighed, running his hand through his hair and looking at Zoe helplessly.

* * *

_Music: The Decemberists – The Shankill Butchers_


	30. Bandidos: Stand Off Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the start

The four found themselves right back where they started, seated tensely in the galley as they tried to ignore the rest of the crew they knew were piled on the other side of the door, pressing their ears to the thick metal and desperately trying to glean any scrap of information they could to puzzle out of what was happening on the other side.

" _Kewu de lao baojun..._  You know we're not turning him in for the bounty. Now stop talkin' in gorram circles at me and hand the man over!" Mal growled in frustration.

"Yeah!" added Jayne, "And give me back my damn hat!"

"I'll do nothing of the sort, Malcolm Reynolds! You don't know  _tamade_  if you think I'll agree to that!"

"You little..." Mari's eyes widened as she slammed her palms to the table, leaning into Mal's face, eyes blazing in a fury.

"Little what, Mal?" Her eyes went dark. "Liar? Traitor? You want to talk about lying? Why don't we start with the bounty on Kouji's head, shiny? By my calculations, that's more than six times the paltry pittance you offered us what to fetch your cargo back. You neglected to mention that when you hired us on. And your inability to follow a gorram order got me shot! How's that for a traitor? I get to wear that little betrayal on my skin the rest of my days."

"I told you I wanted him alive. That was all you needed to know."

"We ain't no space cherries, Mal! We know when someone ain't being straight with us. " Su snorted, insulted. Mari nodded her agreement, cutting off Mal as he opened his mouth to retort.

"You think Su and I are going to hurtling in like a couple of gorram trigger happy pirates with you just cause you and your ship wife got a score to settle with some Browncoat thug turned on you back in the ole days?" That one hit him.

"You don't get to lecture me on the war." Mal warned darkly.

"Oh, don't I? You think you're the only one who thinks they have a score to settle with ghosts?"

"Hand him over, Mari!" Mal roared, bearing down on her in a fury, hands reaching for her collar and stopping somewhere in the air between him and her throat, fingers twitching as they reached for her.

"No." she hissed.

"Want me to shoot her?" Jayne piped in, his gun in his hands before the words had even left his mouth, the sight resting comfortably between Mari's eyes. She didn't even spare him a sideways glance. When he looked up, Su had her pistol trained on his face, a grin on her lips.

"Try it, meat head, I dare ya. I'll take more than your pretty knit cap this time round you even think about tickling that fine weapon o' yours." She and Jayne sized each other up, their captains momentarily forgotten.

"Fine, eh?" Jayne couldn't suppress the small quirk of a smile that found his lips.

"Is that Vera?" Su raised an eyebrow appreciatively, her gaze caressing the weapon.

"Yes, ma'am." Jayne preened.

"My past ain't got nothing to do with this." Mal fell back heavily in his seat, oblivious to Su and Jayne's ramblings as he fixed his gaze squarely on Mari.

"Your past has everything to do with this, Reynolds!" She struggled to keep the rage welling within her contained, trembling with the effort. "I may be a bounty hunter, but I ain't gonna turn over some kid just so you can keep carving him up like a turkey for some wrong he done you. The war is over, Mal. Whatever he did didn't cost you your victory nor your life. What's past is past, you'll be better off leaving what's dead and buried in the dirt!" To her surprise, Mal visibly winced, his eyes flying wide before his gaze fell to his lap. "Shit, Mal, I didn't..."

"Off my ship." he muttered flatly. Mari opened her mouth to counter, but let if fall closed again.

"Captain." she nodded, standing and making for the door, a confused Su in tow. She pushed open the door, their path momentarily blocked as most of the crew blinked up at her from behind the door, eyes wide. Mari sketched a rough bow, her face stony as she plowed through the group, sparing an icy glance for Simon as he watched her leave. Kaylee chased the pair to the hold, making a small noise as she reached for Su's hand.

"S'ok,  _meimei_. Your Cap's just having a bit of a tantrum, s'all." Su grinned, pulling Kaylee into a hug. "Be good. Hopefully I'll see you, soon, hey?" Mari turned to look at the two girls, her face softening some.

"It's me who went and stirred him up." she sighed. "Su, two of you feel free to take the skimmers and catch up. Don't know when you'll be seeing each other again. Back by morning, yeah? I can keep an eye on Kouji till then." Su and Kaylee's face lit up to rival the morning sun, both girls squeezing each other fondly before running off ship.

" _Shoudao_ , Cap! See ya in a bit!" Su called, both girls running out of the hold into the sun.

* * *

"So, the dame returns triumphant. Did you expect that, Kouji? Sure did, Kouji. You're weren't scared she'd turn us over? Not for a second. Why not, Kouji? She sure had every reason to do it. Well, why don't you ask her, Kouji? Hey dame, why didn't you turn us in?" Mari flopped down on the chair opposite Kouji, reaching into her coat and pulling out a beaten pack of cigarettes, her lips seeking one blindly with the ease of long practice. She lit it before tossing the pack and the lighter to Kouji, waiting for the smoke to curl its way inside her and still the turmoil in her mind as he lit his own, the pack coming to rest on the table between them. They stared at each other for a long moment, both pairs of eyes keen, sizing each other up.

"Su mentioned you ran with the Reikaku gang back on Mars." she began casually, rolling her cigarette through her fingers.

"That's right." The double speak and rambling disappeared, his face serious. Even Mari had traded in her rough speech, defaulting to the smooth diction that had been bred into her from infancy. She knew the bandit could see right through it, same as she could see through him.

"Only reason we're having this chat like civilized adults is because she mentioned you were kinder than most. I'm assuming that means you had enough sense leave them behind long ago."

"Heh." he laughed loud and sharp, pulling on his cigarette thoughtfully. "You don't miss much, do ya? Much like your first mate, I didn't much care for Genrou and his tactics. You ain't gotta worry about me running off to them. And I don't mean no harm to her, neither. Two of us ain't got no shared history merits fretting." He cocked his head to the side, looking at her carefully, his eyes measuring her. "Sides, I hear Ol' Genrou went and found himself on the business end of a bounty few months back."

"Is that so?" Mari smirked.

"Nicely done." Kouji smiled widely at her, giving her a small salute.

"I'm not going to give you to Captain Reynolds." she stated simply, no need for preamble. "And I'm not turning in you in. At least, not yet."

"Then what are you going to do with me?" There wasn't worry there, but Kouji looked uncertain, his fingers twitching of their own volition as he shifted uncomfortably.

"I was thinking that I might offer you a job." He blinked at her as she gained the upper hand in their game, unable to follow her angle.

"A job?"

"I'm not going to lie, Kouji. You seem to have quite the knack for the bounty game. That was the smoothest job we've ever run. You follow orders well, and you get the job done. More so, you managed it without killing anyone. People like that are hard to find."

"Ah, but you can't trust me, can you?" he caught up, chuckling softly.

"Bingo." Mari tapped the side of her nose. "I got a closer glimpse than I cared to of what happens when someone like me falls into the hands of someone like you. I am not eager to do that again."

"But we're still having this conversation, aren't we?"

"I can offer you a bed, more food than most, and our protection. No one will touch you while you're on our ship. Su and I will see to it. Plus a cut of whatever job we run."

"And in return?"

"You follow orders, don't surprise us, and leave us be when we sleep. You can leave whenever you want, don't much care when that is, as long as you leave with what's yours and only what's yours." He looked at her thoughtfully, chewing over her offer.

"What happens if I don't live up to my end of the deal?"

"That depends." she leaned forward, stamping out the remains of her cigarette in the overfull tray. "You want to be buried to Genrou's left or right? Or would you prefer to not be buried at all? The way I see it, we have enough collateral on each other all around to keep the playing field even."

"Well, what do you think, Kouji? I dunno Kouji, I think we make a pretty nice quartet with these dames! I think you're right, Kouji! Think they'll see past the bounty on our head? Dunno Kouji, guess we'll have to wait and see. S'pose you're right, Kouji! Well, why don't you let the lady know, Kouji. I was getting to it, Kouji." He held out his hand, a genuine grin on his face. Mari smirked as she saw the ghost of a younger Su grinning at her in her mind's eye. Eyes flashing with the prospect of freedom in the dim gloom of a halfway house on Mars all those years ago. "It's a deal, Cap'n!"

"Welcome aboard the  _Genrou_ , Kouji." She felt his grip go slack in her hand for a moment as the ship's name hung in the air between them.

"You named the ship...?"

"Su did. But it'll be a nice little reminder for you." He laughed outright, throwing his head back as it rang through the room.

"I have to hand it to you, you dames are a crazy pair!" Mari joined him in his mirth, letting the laughter bubble up, easing out the morning's rage. She had a feeling their lives were about to become very, very interesting.

"Come on." she hopped to her feet. "I'll show you to your bunk."

* * *

_Music: Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want – The Smiths_


	31. Bandidos: Shiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets something

The sun was already low in the sky when Malcolm Reynolds came calling. Mari was alone on the ship, Su still out running trouble with Kaylee, Kouji off paying his last respects to the purple-haired barmaid he'd gotten to know during his stay in Whitefall. The knocking on the hatch door filtered up to the hydro gardens, summoning her from the gentle attention she was paying to her crop. By the time she made it to the door, Mal was pacing restlessly before it, attempting to school his face into a calm expression.

"Captain Reynolds." He nodded to her greeting, gesturing aimlessly with his hand.

"Can I come in?" She noted the sudden activity milling outside the Firefly ship parked across the gully and gave a crooked smile, nodding her head as she stepped aside.

"C'mon. I'm tendin' to the crop right now, but you can speak your piece while I work." He followed her through the ship restlessly, gently tracing his fingers along a fixture here, peering through a door there. "He's not here, if that's what you're looking for." She keyed open the door to the  _Genrou's_  small garden, walking back to her planting. "I arranged for to pick him up in the mornin'. Just in case you or your crew got any shiny ideas." Mal leaned on a work table toward the side of the room, head down as he stared at his hands.

"You just don't get it, Mari! You don't know what he stands for. He ain't just any old outlaw, he-" Mari cut Mal off as she slammed a trowel on the floor, rising to her feet and moving toward him through the rows.

"I'm done with this, Mal." Her voice was calm, firm, all traces of her usual messy tones gone in her effort to get through to the man before her. "I'm done. I'm not some girl fresh out of the Academy. I'm not some flower for you to wrap up in a neat little bundle. I'm a captain in my own right, and I will not accept these orders and explanations you feel you can push on me. Stop trying to run my ship and pay a little more attention to your own. Maybe then you won't find yourself needing two little girls to swoop in and save your ass when your cargo goes missing." She sighed, shaking her head as he stared at her wide-eyed, holding up a hand as he opened his mouth to bluster back. "I'm sorry, but I just don't want to hear it. We all do things for our own reasons, this Kouji included. Way I see it, he didn't leave you or those you love dead, so whatever we did couldn't have been that bad. I can't know what he did to you in the battle for unification, and I can't know why he fills you with this insatiable need for revenge. But you can't know why he did whatever it is that he did, and if it was that bad, I'm sure you wouldn't have let him off with a scar and nothing else. You have to stop judging everyone you meet based on the color of the coat they wore ten years ago. We weren't all on the right side of it. But some of us are trying to make up for that." Mal sighed, breaking their shared gaze to look around the room, searching for some element to save his losing argument.

"Stealin' my cargo ain't gonna get anyone on my good side." he finally groused, his face betraying that he knew it was a weak argument in the face of her logic.

"No, but how many times have you stolen cargo?" Mari grinned. "Come off it, Mal." He chuckled, shaking his head.

"I guess you win this time, Miss Mari." He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, a wicked grin playing on his lips. "'Sides, how could I fight with a lady who talks so pretty when she's not tryin' to pretend she's an outlaw?"

"It's captain. And that never seems to stop you, Reynolds." she snorted, amused.

"No." His face turned serious, a heated expression in his eyes fanning the flames she'd been suppressing over the last two days. "I seem to have trouble controlling myself altogether around you, Miss Mari."

"It's cap-" her automatic correction was stilled as his hand ghosted over the side of her face, his calloused thumb tracing gently over her cheekbone as he neared, carefully, slowly, fingers on the back of her head gently coaxing her toward him as he lowered his face towards hers, stealing her lips into a hesitant kiss. She let her body fall against him where he leaned on her work table, and his other hand stole around her waist, pulling her close as the kiss turned passionate, rough, her hands curling in his homespun shirt.

They didn't find cause to quarrel again for quite a while after that.

* * *

Kaylee and Su had headed into town with Kouji, letting him off at his usual saloon and watching as he swept off with his purple-haired barmaid – a woman the two girls couldn't help noting sported a rather unusual physique.

"Can't help but wonder." Kaylee mused as they finished their second (or was it third?) round of drinks. "I ain't never seen a girl with hands that big." Su snorted into her drink, drumming her feet on the floor as she fought to swallow before the laughter overtook her.

"Might explain why Cap'n saw fit to take him aboard with us." Su shrugged, "Least I know he won't try messin' with either of us in bed at night." Their conversation bore little worth relating after that, taking a turn toward the gutter before looping through their respective lives. It wasn't until the barkeep snapped at them that the joint was shutting down that they realized the late hour. Stumbling from the bar, the girls jumped in the skimmer, praying to high heaven they'd make it back to their ships safe enough to indulge in a little engine-brewed hooch. So, when Su woke feeling like the underside of  _Genrou's_  engine, she wasn't terribly surprised. She was surprised, however, to be woken by a masculine snore in her ear that told her she was most definitely not sharing a bed with Kaylee. So surprised, in fact, that her eyes shot open, giving her yet a whole new slew of things to puzzle at.

Primarily that this was not her bunk. That at least, she knew for certain. Through blurry eyes she peered around curiously, not yet daring to move the pulsing storm cloud she chose to call a head, knowing it was another one of those mornings where she was going to have to do a bit of wool-gathering before she was up to speed with what her street-rat brain had chosen to do the night before.

First thing's first: where was she?

Point of fact: It was a bunk aboard a spaceship, that was for certain.

Second point of fact: A firefly class spaceship, if the lines had anything to do with it. But it wasn't a Kaylee-snore in her ear that woke her. Which meant...

_No. Oh, No._

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, swallowed, sent a prayer to Saint Nick, and turned her head to the left.

And cursed roundly at the display of exhibit C: Jayne motherfuckin' Cobb. Naked but for the sheets he was hogging, like the bastard he was, weighing her down with one heavy arm slung over her midsection, and having the audacity to snore in her ear.

 _Hundan._ Slithering sideways, she managed to slip to all fours beside the bed, landing near silently on the pile of clothes that littered the floor. Oh good, her dress. Clothed, she stood, holding her head, looking at the man in the bed. Not bad - for his age. She struggled back along the thin lines of memory into last night and - scratch that. Damn good, because of his age.  _Shiiiiny!_ She snickered, turning from the bed to look for her boots. By the door? No... Under the nightstand? Nooo... Oh, wait, still on her feet. Good, one more mystery solved. She was a regular ol' John Holmes. Or was that Sherlock? Same dif'.

Hat. Hat...hat. Nowhere in sight. No matter, really, it was getting old anyway, and she'd gotten the reaction she'd wanted. But what other little souvenir could she take home to remember being shown such a lovely time...?

Ohhhhh, there, on the nightstand. Beautiful thing that it was. Did she dare?

* * *

It was bright. Oh, so very damn bright. Mal squinted painfully into the sun as he headed back to his own damn ship, eyes shielded as he made his way through the terrible, awful, no-good morning. He hadn't meant to spend the night. Hell, he'd still been so angry when he'd first knocked on the door to her ship that the thought of touching her out of anything but a righteous fury had been far from his mind. But after she'd shot down each and every one of his arguments, he couldn't help feeling that lust Mari's stubborn strength always tuned in him, and the tryst on the work table of her hydroponic room had been followed with a bottle of bourbon in the living room, and a second round of verbal... and other... calisthenics. He remembered following her to her room for a shared smoke and... well, things grew hazy around there.

Trying to trace the circuitous path of his night, the captain didn't notice Su approaching from the  _Serenity_ , a heavy black bag thrown over one shoulder.

"Hey there, Cap'n Reynolds." The young woman's voice forced his eyes up, and he found himself being greeted by the  _Genrou's_  first mate, who was delivering a half-hearted salute with a cheeky wink. "How's the day treatin' ya?"

"Fine, Miss Su, just fine." he nodded, blushing at having her catch him out, hastening to continue his stumble back to the  _Serenity_. "Well, I'll be seein' ya."

"Be seein' ya, Cap." The girl swung herself up through the hatch into the ship, whistling a ridiculously chipper song for someone up so damn early.

* * *

"Go. Go. GO! GO! GO GO GO!" Su came flying into the control room of the  _Genrou_ , startling Mari from her reclining position at the console, the captain already flipping switches and booting the ship when Su slung an oversized bag off her shoulder and strapped into the co-pilot chair. "We have to go now. Now, now." Su emphasized as she grabbed the comm, dialing up the saloon she'd left Kouji at the night before, hollering his room number at the desk clerk. Mari's eyes stayed on the bag Su had thrown down, even as her hands automatically prepped the ship for takeoff.

"What's in the bag?"

"I'll tell ya once we break atmo." Kouji's sleepy voice came through on the comm, and the girl snapped into the mic, "Kouji, ole buddy, ole pal, you got 'bout ten minutes to get in that last tumble and pull your shit together, friend. Meet ya at church." She slammed down the comm as his affirmative came through. "C'mon, c'mon, Cap, we ain't got all day."

"Su? What? Is in? The bag?" Su turned at Mari's sharp voice, a maniac grin lighting up her face as the ship thrummed with force. The  _Genrou_  was easing off the ground, landing gear just tucking away when the  _Serenity's_  hatch flew open violently outside the atmoscreen, yanking the captain's attention forward. "Su? Care to tell me why the Hero of Canton is runnin' out the Serenity in not much more than what he was brought into this 'verse with?"

"Not particularly, Chief."

"Maybe you should see to gettin' your particulars sorted for I toss you out the hatch to that rabid buffalo you seen fit to fuss with." With a snort, the girl grabbed the bag she'd tossed to the floor, hauling it into her lap. She hesitated in her words, looking at the man who ran across the field at them in nothing beyond a sheet held about his lower parts, before turning back to Mari. The captain held the ship just off the ground, holding true to her threat.

"I may have taken a memento." Mari turned back in time to see Su pull a gun from the bag, a weapon that looked ridiculous held in her hands, paired with her deranged grin.

"Is that...?" Su's smug smile dissolved into a ridiculous cackle.

"Vera. Lets dress her up nice an' take 'er somewhere fun!" As a burst of shocked laughter slipped from her mouth, Mari kicked the ship into high gear, shooting toward the nearby town, leaving a whirlwind of dust in their trail to swipe at the furious man below.

* * *

 _Genrou_  sailed quietly through the dark vastness of space, an hour or so off of their destination at Blue Heaven for the overhaul Mari had promised Su for her good behavior. She had let Mal off easy, sending him off with their cut of the cargo to soothe his bruised dignity some. He didn't need to know that the rest of the loot they had relieved Patience of was double the worth of Serenity's entire haul and then some. Not quite so much as the bounty on Kouji's head, but the parts trimmed off the skimmers they had abandoned in the desert would just about cover the difference. And Kouji offered to cover the rest with part of his nest egg after Mari made an off-handed comment about stopping at Mars for fuel a little too close to the Alliance station for his comfort.

The trio sat in the living room, feet kicked up on the table as they passed a small piece of glass between the three of them, enjoying one of the many perks of having a full hydroponic system set up in their ship that had nothing to do with how well they ate. Who cared if they didn't have a proper galley and they had to trip around bags of fertilizer and dirt each time they needed the sub-ethers tuned?

An ancient song, a relic from the last century, ghosted over the dying speakers, the golden voice crooning a sing-song ballad long forgotten. Mari began humming along softly, her voice low and gravely as she purred along to the words, hoping to her feet to dance with an invisible partner.

 _"Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars._   _Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars."_ Kouji jumped to his feet, passing the pipe to Su as he swept Mari into his arms, spinning the captain around the room in a fairly accomplished trot, the two of them falling into step with the ease of long practice earned with other partners.

 _"In other words, hold my hand..."_  he squawked, earning a wince from Mari as the woman laughed, rounded into a spin and a dip, her long ropes of hair trailing on the floor.  _"In other words, darlin', kiss meeeeee!"_  He puckered his lips at her, barking a surprised laugh as Mari unexpectedly kissed him, mock swooning as he lifted her lightly back to her feet, continuing their dance. "Well, Cap'n. I don't know what to say."

"Shut up and dance, pretty boy."

"Aye aye, Cap'n." he nodded, spinning her around the room. Su, feeling left out, traded the pipe for Vera, who had sat in her lap, shining in the light after she had taken the time to clean her up, cursing Jayne's treatment and promising the gun a better life. She held the ridiculous thing to her cheek, mock waltzing alongside the other two, humming along with the long dead band that fritzed through the speakers. The three newfound crew mates sailed through space, lost in their moment of levity, the two women shrieking in laughter each time Kouji squawked along to the song, overpowering Mari and Su's more melodic voices, trading off between the two and spinning them until they were all breathless, collapsing into a pile on the couch.

There would be rough days to come, but right now all was right in the 'verse.

* * *

_Music: Fly me to the Moon - Frank Sinatra_


	32. Gentility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari and Mal share an evening.

"I'll hand it to you, Miss Mari. You sure do keep a mighty fine ship."

"Mal?" Mari blinked, surprised. She hadn't expected him to be standing there, leaning casually against the wall as she de-boarded. She let her gaze flicker down the docking port, looking for  _Serenity_  and coming up empty. A slow smile crept over her face. "If you're here for Su, she's not here. You'll have to fetch Vera another night. She, Kouji, and Su are off on shore leave next few days." He looked at her, his gaze softer than she recalled last time she saw him, eyes dark with mischief she couldn't quite place.

"Not here for Vera." he ducked his head, looking up at her through his dark bangs. "Was actually hoping I could come and see if I could fetch you out for an evening."

"Malcolm Reynolds, are you asking to take me out on a date?" she grinned, raising a surprised eyebrow as she crossed her arms, leaning on the door frame of  _Genrou_.

"S'pose I am? What would you say, Miss Mari?" he grinned roguishly. He was baiting her, and she knew it. She let the honorific slide just this once.

"Won't your crew get to missing you?" He shook his head, his eyes meeting hers warmly, holding her gaze steady, half a heartbeat too long to be mistaken for casual.

"Just me. Took the shuttle down to button up a few loose ends. Saw  _Genrou_  here and thought I'd come calling." She cocked her head to the side, unsure what to make of the offer. He held up his hands at her silence, shrugging casually. Her gaze darted to the small wrapped bouquet in his hand. How had she missed that? "If you don't much care for it, I can go." He thumbed over his shoulder, turning to leave.

"Wait, wait! Come back." she laughed, letting her feet jog her down the gangplank to meet him. He smirked down at her, depositing the bouquet in her hands with a small flourish.

"2100. Germain's. That work for you?" She pulled the paper back gently, eyes widening at the half-open peonies in her hands before fluttering closed as their heavy fragrance reached her nose. "Wear something nice. I hear it's fancy." he whispered softly near her ear, and she cursed internally as her body trembled ever so slightly. She found herself regarding his retreating back before she could stammer out a response, completely off-balance.

She spent the next several hours alternating between pacing the bridge and contemplating the comm, wondering if she should just call him and cancel. She even thought about firing up  _Genrou_  once or twice, but remembered all too quickly what happened the last time she had left Su alone in port.

"Dammit!" She let her head fall onto the console, burying her face in her arms and praying that the heat in her cheeks would leave her. Laika whined, pawing at her leg. "Sorry, girl." Mari smiled weakly, her hand finding the mutt's head and scratching behind her ears until the dog yawned contentedly, curling up at her feet. The scent of the peonies drifted to her from Su'd chair where she had tossed them, taunting her. She could see Mal's face behind her eyelids, eyes warm and teasing. "Oh, thank God Su isn't here." she sighed, kicking to her feet and stomping off to the shower.

She let long forgotten instinct guide her. You could take the girl out of society, but you couldn't take the society out of the girl. Years of gentility were bred into her bones, guiding her as she dug through the back of her closets, pulling out the low-cut black dress. Leading her fingers as they twisted her normally wild ropes of blue hair into an artful arrangement with the ease of long practice. Reminding her how to dress her face into the mask of a lady, lashes long and lips cherry red and smiling softly. She pulled the worn metal from her nose and ears, trading it for some of the more expensive jewelry she and Su hadn't been able to part with after several of their jobs. Women and magpies, always clinging to the shiny trinkets. Gloves and a light stole covered the worst of the scars and ink branded into her flesh, burying the outlaw in luxury if only for the evening. A pretty little lie.

Mal had said to dress nice, after all. She didn't want to disappoint.

She didn't even recognize herself when she looked in the mirror, the long dead ghost of a woman blinking back at her. An alternate image. A 'what if'. All silk and stockings and remembered grace. She laughed once, dark and bitter. Rummaging through her small bag, she retrieved a cigarette out of the shining silver case she saved for special occasions. Placing it between her lips, she relaxed somewhat, the familiarity easing her nerves as she lit it, the paper curling back as the tip glowed red with each shuddering inhalation of breath.

* * *

He was waiting for her in a suit and a smile, rising from his seat as the hostess showed her to the table, the picture of gentility. She watched his eyes fall over her, darkening with appreciation as he took her in, hands finding the back of her chair, sliding it gently under her as she sat. His fingers strayed from the glowing mahogany to stroke the back of her neck, throwing her a touch off-balance.

"You look lovely, Miss Mari." he breathed into her ear, leaving her side to sit across from her. She thanked every god in the 'verse for the low light in the intimate space as an involuntarily blush crept over her cheeks, traitorous and slow.

"Thank you, Mal." she smiled casually, reaching for the stemmed glass of dark wine the waiter placed before her, eyeing him thoughtfully over the rim. "You don't look half bad, yourself." She tipped the glass to her lips, appreciating the fine vintage as it slid over her tongue. It was expensive, and for a half a moment she wondered if this was a carefully plotted revenge. An excuse to lure her out in her finest to mock her, or leave her alone and gaping at an extraordinarily large bill to foot after he took off out a back door for all the times she left him, unconscious and drooling in a bar on some backwater planet or other. But as her gaze fell to his eyes, she realized that she suddenly and truly didn't care. Not when he was looking at her like that.

The evening passed in a companionable fashion. Mari and Mal pulling out their best manners for a delicate dinner, slipping strange sea creatures and fine forgotten wines behind their lips as they shared stories with each other. Tales of their childhoods. Their crews. Nothing heavy, and no barbs beyond light teasing and slightly suggestive flirts as the wine kept flowing, their cheeks red from a combination of the wine and heavy glances. Mal surprised her when he wouldn't even let her catch a glimpse of the bill, sliding a small stack of credits into the leather billfold and rising to offer her a hand, tucking her arm neatly into the bend of his elbow and guiding her out of the restaurant into the warm night.

"Where to now, my lady?" he purred into her neck, the wine on his breath tickling her nose softly, luring a smile to her lips as she fought down the unexpected urge to kiss him.

"Bourbon." She turned to face him, her mouth quirking into a lopsided smile. She placed a gloved fingertip to her lip, pouting it slightly as she thought carefully. "Someplace seedy. I've used up all my pretty manners for one night." 

"I know just the place."

* * *

The cool inelegance of the bar was a relief, Mari shrugging off her stole as her glove found its way between her teeth. She sank into the worn chair as her hand slid out of the satin, revealing inch after inch of ink and scars, leaving her arm bare. Mal outright laughed as she tossed him a cheeky wink, gazing at him over her other glove as she pulled each fingertip, easing her hand out of it slowly before stowing them away in her small purse for safekeeping.

"Better?" he smirked, leaning casually over his chair back, fingers tapping a small staccato on the tabletop, creeping closer and closer to her.

"Almost." She reached up, pulling the ornate pin out of her hair and throwing her head back with a downright growl of pleasure as it tumbled down her back. "Now it's better." She looked up at him as she felt his fingers ghost over her arm, finding the tidy pink scar across her bicep that Simon had stitched up for her a month back. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, his face unreadable in the gloom.

"Mal?" She went to pull her arm away, gasping in surprise as he held tighter, pulling her to him, his lips finding hers unexpectedly. His fingers threaded into her now free hair, keeping her lips pressed to his as the kiss grew passionate, his tongue slipping between her lips, drawing a small traitorous groan from her throat.

"Miss Mari," he pulled away enough to rasp at her, heavy and breathless, "I would be remiss if I didn't let you know that I have no intention of letting you go home by yourself this evening."

"That so?" she whispered, eyes dark, all hint of teasing gone.

"Yes."

"I have bourbon back on  _Genrou_." She reached for her bag again as he pulled her to her feet, gentility gone and replaced with need as they all but ran from the bar, hailing the nearest taxi.

* * *

Mal woke in the cool of the night to an echoing murmur, pushing his drunken haze aside as he cracked his eye open. Mari lay pressed to his side, the sheets wound around her legs and not much else as she thrashed against the cool linens, small murmurs and cries slipping from between her lips.

"Please... don't go out there... please..." she whispered, reaching sleepily for something that wasn't there. "Zach, look out." Mal frowned, shaking off the last of the sleep that lingered, sitting up and looking down at the sleeping captain as her brow furrowed, a tear rolling down her cheek. "Oh God, no!" she choked softly.

"Hey." Mal wrapped the woman in his arms, pulling her to his chest softly and pushing her hair back out of her face. His lips found her temple, pressing small kisses there as he stroked her bare back, soothing her out of the nightmare and back to wakefulness, her large blue eyes fluttering open swiftly. She blinked at him for a moment, unseeing.

"Zach?" The word was little more than a choked sob, catching in her throat as she woke fully, Mal's face hovering over hers, eyes worried. "Oh God...I ... I'm sorry, Mal." She sat up, trying to slide away from him to the bottom of the bed. He caught her by the shoulder, stilling her retreat.

"What were you dreamin' about?" he asked, voice low as he pulled her back into his arms. She shuddered against him, her breath hot on his chest, stirring his body despite his best gentlemanly intentions.

"Nothing. Just old ghosts." she sighed, scrubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm. He hooked a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to his. She looked back at him, eyes glowing in the small sliver of light ghosting in through the window.

She looked lost.

"We all have things that haunt us in the dark, Mari." he whispered breathlessly. "Ain't nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed." She looked back at him, reaching for his face and pulling his lips to hers, letting him fall upon her. Forgetting her nightmares in the caress of his fingers as his lips softly pulled the breath from her body. She traded the terrified trembling for shudders of pleasure as he fell into her slowly. Gently. Taking his time with her in the still of the small hours of the morning.

She had lied to him. She was ashamed. Ashamed of the comfort she found as she let her hands trace over his back, feeling the muscles moving there under her palms. Ashamed of her body as it trembled around him, seeking release. Ashamed of herself for wanting this man after she had promised herself to another. Wanting him more than she should.

More than was proper.

Still, she clung to him desperately, entwined in a nest of fingers and limbs and sweat as the night fell away from them slowly, folding them into an exhausted slumber as the sun threatened the horizon.

The smell of coffee and peonies lured her from her dreams, coaxing her to life as the early afternoon sun fell across her body, warming the kinks out of her overused muscles. She opened her eyes to find the previous day's bouquet set in a vase by her bedside, Mal sitting nearby, sipping on a mug of coffee as he held one out to her.

"Mornin' Captain." Mal grinned at her, dressed in his now rumpled suit, pressing the steaming mug into her hand as he leaned over her. She closed her eyes as she took several long gulps, letting the coffee pull her into a reluctant wakefulness. She noted the lack of sugar, wondering if he remembered how she took her coffee, or just couldn't find it.

"Morning." she smiled, blinking back the last of the sleep and leaning forward into Mal, accepting the small kiss he planted on her lips. "What time is it?"

"A bit after 1200, I think. Pretty lady like you seems to need quite a bit of beauty sleep." He ran a thumb down her cheek and over her throat, and she felt it still as it lingered over the scar Badger had left her with. Mal had found that particular one early in the morning as he had played cartographer to her body, learning her hurts and soothing them away with lips and fingertips.

"Time to retreat, I take it?" she smiled softly at him sitting there on the edge of her bunk, mostly dressed save for his coat. A stark contrast to her still bare body.

"Unfortunately." he purred into her neck, letting his lips fall to the soft spot behind her ear. "Thank you for a marvelous night, Miss Mari."

"Captain Mari." she reminded him playfully, pulling away as he lazily sought her lips again.

"Captain." he smiled into her lips as she allowed him one more kiss, long and lingering.

"Go on, off with you." she shooed him playfully, pulling the sheet around herself to shield her body from his gaze. He leaned over, placing one more kiss on her cheek before tipping his rather smart hat onto his head and strolling out of her bunk, a whistle on his lips. She listened for the sound of the hatch, letting out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as it hissed closed. With a sigh, she fell back onto the pillows, throwing a hand over her face as she groaned loudly.

"What the fuck was that all about?!"

* * *

Su and Kouji came waltzing onto the ship that evening, earlier than expected, finding Mari curled up in the living room, a book in her hand and Laika sleeping at her feet.

"Welcome back." Mari looked up at them, surprise crossing her features. She was used to having to track them down from shore leave. Her left eyebrow twitched up ever so slightly, regarding the two as the stood nervously in the doorway. "You didn't get in any trouble, did you?"

"Naw, Cap'n. Just bored is all. Only so many bar fights a gal can get in 'for they don't let you in anymore." To her surprise, Mari only nodded, returning her gaze to her book.

"We'll take off tomorrow morning, then."

"Aye Cap'n." Su looped her arm through Kouji's, dragging him to their respective bunks. She paused in Mari's doorway, eyeing the vase of peonies on the bedside stand. She has told the Mal white, but she figured pink was close enough.

"I think our Cap had a nice shore leave, Kouji. I think you're right, Kouji!" He smiled, elbowing Su gently as he disappeared up the ladder into his room, closing the door quietly behind him.

"I think so, too." Su smiled.

* * *

_Music: Lovers in a Dangerous Time – Barenaked Ladies_


	33. Space Opera: At the Opera Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the crew actually goes to the opera.

A lone vocalist sang a sorrowful song, her voice echoing as it leaked out of the captain's open bunk into the ship.

"How can you listen to this? She sounds like a shrieking harpy." Su covered her ears, making a face as the aria belted through the second-hand speakers, the high notes crackling into static. She fell heavily onto the bed next to her captain, watching as Mari cracked an eyelid from her lounging position.

"It does not!" Mari pouted turning up the volume and frowning as the sound fritzed out. "Gorram piece of  _goushi_." she muttered, bringing her foot down on the side of the box. "Should have replaced these while we were overhauling the ship." She sighed, sitting back against her pillow, enjoying what little she could hear. "I saw this performed live once, it was beautiful."

"You actually paid to go hear that?" Su groaned, giving the opera a second listen and finding it no better upon closer inspection.

" _Lucia di Lammermoor_? You bet your pretty knit cap I did. Well, my Dad did." She shrugged. " I was eighteen. Fresh out of Junior Alliance training. Sort of a graduation present, I suppose."

"Shiny." Su smiled, wincing slightly as the singer hit another high note. "Who is this, anyway?"

"The late Diva Plavalaguna." Mari sighed, humming along with the melody, letting the music take her back.

"That blue lady who was shot up on Fhloston few years back?" Mari nodded, looking a touch sad.

"She was such a beautiful woman. A Companion too. It was a big honor to get to see her sing live."

"I'll never understand you prep school types." Su shuffled off the bed, flipping the radio off and dragging Mari to her feet. "Come on, Cap'n. We got work to do!"

* * *

It was two days later when Mari docked the ship on Fhloston, a grin lighting up her face as she watched the colorful visitors receiving flower necklaces as they stepped down from their luxury liners. With an excited chuckle she leapt out of her seat, striding from the bridge into the ship proper.

"Kouji! Su!" she called to her crew as she approached their quarters, laughing at their sleepy faces as they tumbled from their rooms expecting a fight.

"What is it Kouji? The dame's a-hollerin', but I don't see much o' nuthin. I dunno Kouji, I was sleepin'. Damn! Me too, Kouji."

"Shaddup, Kouji's!" Su growled, knuckles rubbing sleep from her eyes as peered into the darkness behind Mari. "Cap'n, are we docked? What' goin' on?"

"Get yer Sunday best, boys and girls." Mari grinned. "We're havin' a vacation in Fhloston." With a shared whoop, the outlaws ran back to their rooms, gathering the necessities for a new day in paradise.

* * *

"What have I done to deserve this, Cap'n?!" Su threw herself on the bed in her room of the suite as she hollered out the door. Mari chuckled to herself, wondering how excited the girl would be when she discovered the endgame of their little trip. Standing in the middle of the suite, she peered about the rooms, sighing at the little luxuries she missed out in the 'verse - the sumptuous cloths covering the furniture, the down comforters and real chocolates on the pillows. The huge bathtub, complete with tall jars of bath products. The thick rug beneath her feet. Su careened with a squeal from her room, flying past Mari to race through the doors to Kouji's bed, leaping up and down on the mattress beside the blue-haired man, giggling incessantly.

"Kouji, you seem to be under attack! I know Kouji, I dunno what the over-sized harpy could want... Hey, harpy, what's your problem?!" He grabbed her legs, knocking her to the bed into a shrieking, cackling heap as they wrestled on the overstuffed mattress until Kouji pinned Su down with his knees, punching the air with a fist."To the victor go all the umbrella drinks!" Mari began to doubt the sanity of her plans.

"Alright you two, Mommy needs her alone time. We have a very important appointment tonight. Be back by 1900." She glared after the two grinning maniacs as they scampered to the door. "1900 sharp. And don't be drunk!" She slammed the door over their whining, grinning as she made a beeline for the huge bathroom.A half hour later saw her ensconced in the huge sunken bathtub, up to her neck in lavender-scented bubbles as the room filled with the sounds of the diva Kuro Mizuumi, Plavalaguna's final apprentice. She shivered happily in the warm water, goosebumps rising on her arms as the woman's voice pierced through the Puccini aria in perfection.

She couldn't wait for tonight.

Reluctantly, she eased herself out of the tub, letting the scented bubbles slide off her skin as she wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, feeling cleaner than she had in months, if not years. Her hair hung in her face, heavy and wet, and she sighed, flipping one of the heavy ropes with her fingertips.

Perhaps it was time for a change...

* * *

Su and Kouji came tripping down the hall a touch close to the wrong side of seven, hushing each other ineffectively as they slowed to what they deemed a respectable walk. The captain had said 'not drunk', but she hadn't said 'sober', either. And a scorpion bowl only counted as one drink, so one a piece wasn't anything she could be cross at them for by their reasoning. Kouji wore his umbrella behind his ear, swinging Su on his arm, the picture of slightly buzzed dignity as the pair stumbled into the suite, their feet freezing to the floor as they spied their captain sitting at the ornate vanity. She was wrapped in a silk robe, humming to herself as she adjusted her hair neatly, the neat blue curls floating just above her shoulders.

"Damn." Su whispered, low and surprised as Mari's gaze flicked in her direction.

"You're late." Mari pointed a manicured hand at the pair, her smile betraying her mock anger.

"Hey Kouji, I think a lady snuck in her and switched places with our Cap'n. I dunno, Kouji, that don't seem too ladylike. Shut it, Kouji, I'm too busy ogling the dame. Good point, Kouji. Hellooooo, nurse." Kouji punctuated his babbling with a long wolf whistle, stepping across the room to pull a finger through one of Mari's curls, watching it straighten and bounce back into place.

"Awww, I liked the dreads." Su sulked, flopping down on Mari's neatly made bed.

"Then you can get some next. Now come on, I laid out clothes for each of you in your rooms. Shower and make yourselves pretty. We have box seats for tonight's performance. 2100 sharp!" She clapped her hands, retrieving Kouji's hands out of her hair and pushing him toward the door that connected their rooms.

"Box seats for what?" Kouji's muffled voice drifted from behind the door. "You look miiiighty fancy for a baseball game. Maybe she's taking us to the greyhound tracks, Kouji! Oh, that'd be nice."

"For the opera." Mari chirped happily, ignoring the loud groan that came from Su as the woman put a pillow over her head.

"Don't wanna!" she whined loudly.

"Too bad." the captain trilled, pulling the pillow away.

"Piss off!" Mari pulled Su to her feet, unshaken, propelling her first mate heavily with a push between the shoulder blades.

"Dress. Now!" Su skulked to the door, muttering something or other about 'prep-school brats and their screechy harpy music' as the door closed behind her, cutting her off.

"Geez, what is this?" she yowled, reappearing a second later and holding the gown out in front of her like it was going to bite her hand off.

"Wear that one and I'll let you keep your boots on with it." Mari rested her chin on her fingertips, watching Su as the woman sized her up carefully.

"Honest?"

"Honest." Mari nodded, a small smile creeping along her face, splitting her painted lips into a toothy grin. Su shrugged, the gown much less offensive to her now, disappearing back into her room.

* * *

"I look like a whore." Su groused, sitting back in Mari's room as her captain twisted her hair back away from her face, filling it with pins and clips until it stayed put in whatever creative arrangement it had been piled into.

"Yes, well, at least you look expensive." Mari rolled her eyes at her first mate. "Now it's my turn to get ready, so you sit there and don't get wrinkled. When the man comes to the door, give him your boots."

"Give him my...! Boss, you said-"

"Fine, fine, let him polish them while they're on you, just don't get the dress dirty!" The final squawk of indignation reached her ears as she raised her hand to the bathroom door, preparing to knock. Before she could put fist to wood, the door sprung open, revealing an already preening Kouji.

"We clean up nice, don't we Kouji? I rather think we do, Kouji! Think the captain will mention it? Well the captain is a lady, and ladies are always polite, a

nd the polite thing to do would be to mention how dapper we look, sooo..." He eyed her pointedly. She rolled her eyes for the second time in as many minutes. "Very nice, you two. But where's the tie?"

"Tie? I saw no tie. Kouji, did you? Nope, me neither, but that's okay, ties are for pansies, not dashing rogues like us!" He swept past the woman, slipping the palmed bow tie into her robe pocket. Honestly. Complete and utter buffoonery.

"Make sure Su lets the bootblack shine her shoes," she shouted after him before closing the bathroom door. Pulling the small closet open, she took out the elegant silk dress, excitement lighting her face at the new luxury. Space royalty for one night, she thought to herself as she slipped the cool cloth over her head. She would never admit it to them, but her crew did clean up good, even with boots and without bow ties. The fact that she'd indulged in purchasing new clothes for them didn't hurt, but the two outlaws pulled them off, their street bred bravado accentuating the understated elegance.

Perfect, as the night was just as much about being seen as it was about seeing.

* * *

_Music: Il Dolce Suono_

 


	34. Space Opera: Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari runs into an old acquaintence.

They arrived at the red carpet event at a fashionable time, Mari leading her little entourage down the path. A small smile lit her face as she casually waved to the faces she remembered, heart leaping in glee as their eyes traced over her, trying to place the elegant warrior that stood before them. Behind her, Su leaned on Kouji's arm, the two laughing darkly.

"Heads up, shoulders back, necks long." Mari had ordered them in the elevator down. "Glide, don't clomp. Especially you, missy. Smile, but only a bit. Look superior, like you have a secret."

Glancing back under the pretense of taking Kouji's other arm, she checked their progress. A fair approximation, she supposed, though they seem to have gotten having a secret confused with being slightly inebriated. Arms linked they swept past the flashbulbs, sideways glances enlivening their smirks as they swept into the theater. There was something both delicious and slightly terrifying about the whole ordeal. The envious glances, mixed with a touch of tension. The whispers that floated behind the trio as people tried to tag their faces in their memories, coming up empty.

"Who is that?"

"Have you seen any of them before?"

"Well, they wouldn't be here unless they were someone, obviously."

There was too much polish, too much poise. Cleaned up they were no longer dangerous, they were exotic, unapproachable. Elegant birds with notably expensive plumage. Mari smirked softly.  _Ahhh, High Society. So preoccupied with yourself you can't even realize when three outlaws are standing in your midst._ Mari's gloved hand slipped into her purse, handing three reflective tickets to the usher as they reached the foot of the velvet clad stairs, his eyes widening noticeably.

"Right this way, ma'am."

To their credit, Su and Kouji seemed to have caught on, the whispers and flashbulbs creating a sort of game for the two. The pair grinned to each other, turning to give a superior wave to the crowd as they ascended the stairs to their box behind Mari. Su even spared a coy wink to a garishly dressed man who was squealing into a microphone in the corner, his fanatic obsession over the glittering crowd momentarily forgotten with a small squeak as he tried to place her, coming up empty.

The box was downright sumptuous. Velvet and silk hung heavy around them as they took to their ornate chairs, the usher closing the doors softly behind them. As soon as it clicked closed, they all dissolved into muffled laughter in the privacy of the small room.

"I have to hand it to ya, Cap!" Su snorted into her glove. "You sure know how to put on a show!"

"But of course." Mari preened in her best diction, sparing a wide smile for the pair. "What do you think society is?"

"So, are we stuck in here until the fat lady sings, Kouji? I dunno, Kouji, seems like. Why don't you ask the Cap'n?" Mari cut him off, fishing a small package out of her purse and tossing it at him. He caught it, his face lighting up as he pulled out the worn pack of playing cards and a couple of pairs of earplugs.

"I hear one peep from you and I'll gag the pair of you and tie you to your chairs." she warned. Kouji reached for her hand, pulling it to his lips and looking up at her adoringly.

"You, my lady, are a gentleman an' a scholar."

"What he said!" Su was already pulling several chairs together to make a makeshift table in the back of the box, leaving a lone chair for Mari to watch from as the pair of outlaws shoved the small foam plugs in their ears right as the lights began to flicker in warning.

* * *

She was sublime.

There was no other word for her. Dark and moody, with a voice that echoed like a bell through opera house. The diva Kuro Mizuumi stood on a naked stage in homage to her late mentor, the gently swirling blue clouds of Fhloston creating a magnificent backdrop as her voice spilled forth, caressing goosebumps into Mari's skin. She was something entirely different onto herself. Refined, but wild. A spirit contained, but not controlled. Her voice careened between desperation and adoration with ease, her delicate features translating the ancient words, negating any need for a program as she laid it all bare before her audience. Mari didn't even realize she had tears in her eyes until Kouji was shaking her shoulder as the intermission lights rose.

"Hey Cap, you doin' alright?" He looked down at her, his expression a touch concerned. "Ain't that bad, is it?"

"No, no." She sniffed delicately, pulling out a small embroidered handkerchief and touching it gently to her eyes. "I'm going to go freshen up." She got to her feet slowly, hands smoothing the silk gown. "Intermission is time for socializing. You step a foot out of this room, you be on your best behavior, shiny?"

" _Shoudao_!" The pair echoed, looking absolutely ridiculous as they clicked their heels, tossing her a mock salute. She eyed them once more before slipping quietly out of the box, almost careening into the usher as his hand was poised to knock on her door.

"My apologies, ma'am." he sputtered, flustered. "The gentleman in box five wishes to have a word with you." Mari's brows furrowed a bit, confused as to who would have cause to call on her directly. Fear of recognition crept up her spine, for herself and the two outlaws in their box.

"May I ask who is in box five?" she inquired softly, eyeing the poor boy carefully.

"Lord Gabriel Tam, ma'am." Her eyes widened slightly as the name pulled the wind from her. She gave him a small nod, letting him lead her down the ornate hallway, pausing to knock on a heavy door. She winced as the voice threaded through it, muffled, but familiar.

"Enter." The usher pulled the door open, gesturing to her to make her way inside, the door closing quietly behind her. Following her own instructions, she glided into the room, head held high as she moved to sit beside the wealthy man, face an impassive mask over the nagging anxiety that gnawed at her mind.

"Miss Hermann." A pinched smile barely touched his lips, eyes hard and pained, "All grown up, eh?"She held out her delicate gloved hand, watching the man bow perfunctorily over it.

"Lord Gabriel." she tried to smile into this dangerous game. "It's lovely to see you again. How is the Lady Regen?" He ignored her question, his face hardening, his eyes burning into her as he hissed over the delicate hand he still held in his

"I wish I could say the same, my dear. Times have changed. You have changed. You look like someone who might know where my children are."

* * *

The boss probably should have told them to not get drunk this time, Su reflected. She hadn't, so here they were, knocking back glasses of champagne among the peacocks they usually hoodwinked. Finding themselves the center of attention, their bravado began going to their heads as they laughed and spun tales to the colorful birds swarming them, eyes wide at their rough dialect and faces glazed with the delicate sheen of designer drugs.

"So, you're real live bandits?!" squealed an over-excited girl in dress that resembled nothing so much as bubbles cascading down her artfully covered form. "Space pirates?!"

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Su demurred, sliding her eyes conspiratorially at Kouji. "Our captain might get mad..."

"Let's just say not all of our dealings are on the up and up." Kouji purred, directing a wink at the girl and chuckling as heat rose into her cheeks. As the crowd murmured appreciatively, a movement from the edge of the hall caught Su's eye. She watched as Mari slipped by in the shadows, escorted from the opera house on the arm of a distinguished older man, two firm looking bodyguards at their back.

"Where...?" Kouji followed her gaze, a smirk crossing his lips.

"Looks like Cap'n found something better than opera, eh?" Kouji murmured in her ear under the pretense of tucking a lock of hair back. "Lucky girl." Su's eyes narrowed at the way Mari held herself, the ramrod straight of her back, the stiffness of her walk. All her poise from earlier was gone, her casual elegance missing. Her eyes stayed straight ahead, a thin smile plastered on her face as she spoke with the man.

"No, Kouji." the girl murmured back as she pretended to fix his collar. "Something's wrong."

* * *

"Don't even look in their direction, my girl." Gabriel's voice whispered in her ear. "Those miscreants will regret it if they get between the two of us."

"Gabriel, I told you," she flashed him a thin-lipped smile, trying her best to look normal, as ordered, "I don't know where Simon and River's are."

"Bullshit." he snarled, face contorting in frustration. "You outlaws all know each other. Last I heard they were on some firefly class ship called  _Serenity_." He eyed her as her brain raced to get ahead of him. "With some criminal by the name of Reynolds."

"I have never heard of such a ship. I'm sorry, but I can't help-" Her sentence was cut off as he came to a halt in his long stride, whirling on her.

"Funny. I've had some very compelling evidence otherwise." he bit out. "In fact, I've heard you may have been in contact with the dashing Captain Reynolds recently."

"What?" Her heart pounded in her chest as her brain fought to keep up. How could he know anything of Simon and River's connection to Mal? "I'm sorry, I'm not sure-" He let out an exasperated bark, seizing her arm once more as he dragged her behind him down the long, elegant hall. "Let me go, Gabriel!" She fought against his iron grip, tripping over the hem of her gown as she eyed the thugs at her back. "I don't know where you think you are taking me, but I'm afraid there is no more to tell."

"You're coming to my rooms, girl." he snapped. "And we'll see exactly what you can or cannot tell me."

* * *

_Music: All the Right Moves – One Republic_

 

 

 


	35. Space Opera: Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When worlds collide...

It had taken precious moments to extract themselves from their crowd of admirers, and by the time they reached the hallway, the captain and her aristocratic looking man were nowhere in sight.

"Shit." Su twisted her mouth, searching from left to right, unable to even begin to guess where they would have gone.

"I'm telling you, she just met someone appealed to her fancy." Kouji said, patting her on the back. "She's probably halfway to heaven already."

"No., he wasn't the type. She like's 'em brave to the point of foolhardiness." Su mused, still peering around for some hint of direction. "That man was all sophistication and no fight. Prolly ain't touched a caster in his damn life. There!" She trotted forward, her usual lope awkward in her glamorous dress as she ducked down to seize a small jewel from the ground. "It's one of her earrings!" Kouji gave a low whistle.

"Well spotted." Reaching into his suit coat, the man came up with a gun, grinning as Su raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Hey, Kouji, looks like the lady thinks she's the only mysterious space pirate here. Damn Kouji, it's like she doesn't know we have more important things to do. C'mon, lady, we gotta save Cap'n!"

"Hold on!" Su turned her back on Kouji, looking at him over her shoulder. "Unzip me. I can't run for shit in this damn thing."

"Kouji, how did you get yourself into this mess with these broads? I dunno Kouji. Karma? All that sinning when we were young?" He unzipped her, watching as she sprinted away, returning moments later with a small metallic card tucked into her cleavage, grinning as he took his turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Coat check. What?! It's the nicest thing I've ever worn! I'm not getting it all shot up after one night." She took off, not thinking twice about sprinting down the marble hallway in not much more than her boots and brassière.

"Kouji, you gotta find yourself a new ship. You got that right Kouji. You got that right."

* * *

Gabriel Tam paced restlessly in front of Mari, fuming as he searched for a place to start his questioning, unsure in the etiquette of interrogation. Mari sat as still as she could in the straight back chair she'd been shoved into upon entering his suite, warily pondering the man before her. She'd known Gabriel as a strict, loving father-figure since her childhood, but she had never once pictured the man in a state as he was before her now. She had seen men like this before, and it usually ended in a broken nose or bruises. The transformation was unsettling. He was a man driven to desperation by the loss of both his children. A man who knew that it was his own fault that they were lost to him now. A man who could be capable of anything in his sorrow and rage.

He sat heavily on the bed, running his hair through his hands and muttering to himself, all semblance of dignity gone as he looked up at her, his expression unreadable. "We were going to try and have the two of you wed once. Did you know that?" Mari blinked, the sudden change of subject startling. She let him ramble, her hands fidgeting with the purse on her lap nervously. "Your father and I thought it would be a fortuitous match. You had so much promise." He trailed off, unseeing in the space between them. "But then you went and met that man."

"His name was Zachary." she bit at him, forgetting herself for a minute as her lip curled into a pained snarl.

"Yes, yes. Good man." Gabriel muttered absently, getting to his feet and crossing the room to retrieve a small envelope. He handed it to Mari, eyes never meeting hers. "I wonder what he would have said about this?" Her hands opened it gently, pulling out the photographs. Surveillance stills from the port she had docked the  _Genrou_  at for their last long stay, a cocky Malcolm Reynolds leaning on the nearby wall, waiting for her. And a few more... far more intimate ones from when he returned her home early the next morning.

"Where did you get these?" she asked coolly, returning them to their envelope as she fought to keep the red out of her cheeks.

"There are people out there much better at what you do, my dear. They've been doing it a lot longer." he sighed.

"Then why not hire them to bring Simon home? Why keep me here?" He looked at her, his resolve finally breaking, tears running down his face as his desperation took the forefront.

"I want my children safe!"

"Gabriel, I've known you my entire life. This isn't like you! Hired thugs and threats? Is this what you want to become?" she pleaded with him as he wept openly, unsure of what to do. "Will you really destroy me in the hopes of finding them again?"

"I'll do anything! I never should have sent River to that place. I had my doubts, but Regan, she..." Mari was on her feet, enfolding the man into her arms before he could stop her. She felt his back stiffen a moment before her relaxed into her, clutching her bare shoulders as he sobbed into her hair. "Both my children... lost to me now." he choked roughly. "Lost to me forever because I was too stubborn. Too proud." Mari stroked his hair, guiding him to the chair he had been threatening her in. She knelt gently by his knee as she rummaged through her purse, pulling out a handkerchief and praying he wouldn't notice the initials M.R. embroidered delicately into it.

"Your children are safe." Mari soothed, pressing the small square of fabric to the corners of his eyes. "Safe and cared for. Loved, even." He looked at her, eyes red and watery. "They're scared, so they're running. But they have each other." She bit her lip nervously as he looked at her for a moment, longer than was comfortable, looking for some scrap more. " I can't tell you more than that, Gabriel. I'm sorry." A loud knock sounded at the door, followed by the sound of two very large men entering the room. Mari closed her eyes as she heard the clicks behind her, not needing to look to know that several pistols were trained on the back of her head.

"Lord Tam?" One of them questioned the scene before him uncomfortably, his expression unreadable behind his dark glasses.

"Leave us." he coughed, trying to regain his composure. "I was... I was mistaken. Wait at the box for me to return." There was a small murmur of confusion, but the men obeyed, leaving the room and closing the door softly behind them.

"Thank you, Gabriel." He offered her the first real smile he had spared her in years, weak as it was, his hand squeezing hers gently as he returned her handkerchief to her.

"Come, my girl. I remember how fond of the opera you always were." He was on his feet, pulling her to hers gently. His rage had left him empty, soft, as he let his sorrow enfold him. "It would be a shame to miss the second act."

* * *

Kouji and Su came careening down the hallway just in time to find Lord Tam escorting Mari from his room on his arm, the pair whispering quietly.

"Cap'n!" Su bellowed, diving for the pair in naught but her boots and skivvies, a borrowed pistol in her hand as she skidded to a halt at Mari's furious gaze.

"Where? Is? Your dress?" Mari ground out as Lord Tam shifted uncomfortably at her side, coughing into his fist and averting his gaze in a gentlemanly fashion.

"Cap, I thought you..." she sputtered as Mari stared her down, gaze icy.

"I said best behavior. BEST. Behavior."

"But Chief, I..!" Mari sniffed sharply, her eyes widening as the gin tickled her nose.

"And you're drunk?!" Her left eyebrow was in danger of retreating into her hairline as her face turned red. "You too?" Her gaze snapped to Kouji, the man too confused to do anything other than gape at Mari. Their captain sighed heavily, her pretty face falling behind her hand for a moment as her fingertips massaged her forehead. "Both of you, dressed and back in the box. NOW!" Kouji's arms were around Su's arms, pulling her down the hallway before the woman could ask what happened.

"What did you tell the dame, Kouji? I told her the Cap was just having a little fun, Kouji, but would she listen to ol' Kouji? Nooooooo!" His voice trailed off as they disappeared around a corner, leaving a very flustered Mari in their wake.

"Well then." Gabriel coughed. "Back to the opera?" Bewildered, the pair made it back to the box just as the lights began to dim, Gabriel holding the door open for her. "Mari, I have no right to ask this, but would you perhaps care to dine with me tomorrow afternoon? I would very much like an opportunity to catch up with the remarkable daughter of one of my dear friends." Hh smiled sadly at her, and she found herself nodding.

"Goodnight, Lord Tam." He leaned forward, depositing a small kiss on her forehead.

"Goodnight, my girl." She slipped into the cool of the box, her back settling against the wooden door as she let the last of the shaking in her limbs still. She stepped forward to her chair, noting idly that Su and Kouji sat in rapt attention, hands in their laps, perfect angels save for the intermittent hiccups that plagued Su when she got too excitable in her cups. She opened her mouth to scold them, but closed it again as the first notes of the aria broke the still of the room, pulling her gaze away.

There would be time for that later in the evening. Right now, she was at the opera.

* * *

A hum curled from her throat, the closest justice Mari could pay to the arias that had washed over her that evening. She settled before the ornate vanity once more, slowly wiping the makeup from her face as she listened to her crew changing in their own rooms, a bemused smile crossing their lips as they shouted across the hallway at each other.

"All night black-jack!"

"And fancy gin!"

"And roulette!"

"And FANCY GIN!"

Pulling the last of the pins from her hair, Mari moved to put away her jewelry, freezing as she noticed her bare right ear. She sighed, staring at the lonely twin in her hand, remembering she had plucked it from her ear on instinct, hoping Su would grab the hint had things gone for the worse with Lord Tam. They had been from Zachary, a gift at their wedding. Beautiful opals that glimmered and danced in even the lowest of lights. She rarely wore them for exactly this reason. Her life just didn't support the finer things now. It was a cruel reminder; she hadn't expected the life of Captain Mari, the bounty hunter, the would be outlaw, to encroach of the life of Lady Mari, the opera goer, the once-socialite; but it had. The outlaw ways had stomped in with their muddy boots and snatched one of the few nice things she had left from that time before.

You can't shine up a bandit and call him a prince. You can't perfume a thief and call her a lady. Just as tonight, a lord couldn't fall to crimes below his station. But where did she fit in? She was never dirty, never brash or brass enough to be true outlaw. But even now, trying to clean off the years of effort, she couldn't return to society, either. Not without people expecting certain things from her they wouldn't expect of a lady. A cruel thing, indeed.

A soft knock interrupted Mari's musings, Su's head peeping through the door. "

You still mad, Boss?"

"I s'pose not." Mari sighed. The girl smiled, slipping through the door, shutting it closed behind her. Mari took Su in, eyes tracing over the clothes she had changed into, so comfortable in the worn jeans and threadbare top. So at home in her skin as she settled at the vanity next to her captain, eyes looking at their juxtaposing reflections in the mirror. So different, but sharing so much.

"Got something for ya, Cap." The girl held up the missing earring with a grin. "Served great as a road map. Hey, what's wrong?!" she asked, startled as Mari threw her arms around her, pulling her close in a rare hug. After a beat the captain let go of her first mate, laughing past her misty eyes and shaking her head as she took the bauble from the girl, reuniting it with its mate in the small velvet box.

"Nothing, nothing. I just thought it was gone. Now, you and Kouji go have fun, drinking and gambling and raising hell and what not." Su gave a confused shrug, grinning at the still elegantly dressed woman before her.

"Thanks cap." As the outlaw slipped from the door, Mari smiled ruefully at her own reflection.

"Thank You."

* * *

_Music: Musetta's Waltz – Anna Netrebko_

 

 

 


	36. Space Opera: Vera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody wins.

Kouji had abandoned her at the poker table, taking off shortly after they arrived with a pretty, winking young man. The last she'd seen him, he was gleefully throwing a wicked glance over the boy's head, cackling "don't wait up!" at her as the young man under his arm giggled in anticipation.  _Lucky buggers. Oops! Phrasing..._  she snickered to herself, gathering the glowers of the smokey, paunchy old men around her. She was on a roll and didn't want to leave; the chips just kept stacking up as she snickered gleefully at the dealer's increasingly frustrated face. The bulls would come to roust her soon, but she'd take as damn much as they'd let her til then

She pushed an obscene amount of chips to the center of the table, grinning gleefully, tells be damned. She'd been oilin' them up 'til now, betting wildly and bluffing on hands of two pair or less. They were pissed, bristling at her gall, determined to take back their chips and bury the impudent girl, pushing the bets higher and higher until it came: the moment of truth.

"Hands down, gents... Lady." One by one they revealed their cards, decent hands here, awful there. Faces red and sweaty as they waited for her to lay down the little cards held close to her chest.

"Full House." She laid them down, one by one. "Read 'em and weep, gents. And with that, I'm off. I know, I know - it's hardly fair. But you know what they say; never engage in a land war in Asia, never tangle with a woman when-" a heavy hand clapped down onto her shoulder, cutting her off.  _Shit, the bulls._  But wait, no, the men were staring at the space above her head, an odd trepidation in their eyes...

"Miss Su." The familiar voice ground her name out, full of venom and dumb triumph. A voice that heralded nothing but trouble. Well, fuck. She was wondering when he'd show up for Vera. She twisted in her chair, throwing the man a flirtatious wink.

"You're going to have to wait, tiger, I made a killing." She gestured at the massive pile of chips, praying it would get through the man's thick skull.

"Uh..." Christ, she could practically hear the cogs turning behind his confused face. "Yeah." Chips in hand, she bid the men a cheeky salute as Jayne's hand wrapped around her bicep, dragging her from the table.

"Lovely time, gents! Hope to see you soon! Pardon me- don't want to keep this brute waiting!" As she cashed out, the brute in question leaned against the counter, glowering savagely at her.

"Why you always gotta be so damn confusing, girl? I just come for my gun, and you go wrapping me up in another one of your gorram schemes." She shrugged as the cashier handed over the large stack of bills.

"It's fun. What else matters? Aside, they think I'm with you, they won't try to roll me later. Saves me my fists." With a grin, she shoved the bills into her bra, offering her bicep to the man, "Alright, you big, scowly outlaw! Drag me off to meet my doom." He obliged with a muttered cuss about ladies not knowing their damn place, pulling the chuckling girl behind him toward the docking bays.

* * *

The morning found Mari sitting in the main room of the suite, a smile pressed to tented fingers as she watched the delivery boy lay out tray after tray of sumptuous foods. Crispy fried sausages, spicy potatoes with thick green peppers, large poached eggs with spinach and hollandaise, thick slices of Challah bread smeared with real butter. Berries, melon, avocado and thick slices of tomato. Fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh brewed coffee - no instant today. Her mouth watered at the expensive feast; she had been unable to stop ordering once she had started, winding up with a meal fit for six, not three. As soon as the boy left, she tucked in, savoring the melange of scents and tastes. It wasn't long before a heavy pair of boots sounded on the rug behind her, slumping toward the table.

"Help yourself! I ordered more than we could eat all day..."

"Don't mind if I do." An unexpected gravelly voice returned her offer, scaring her out of her skin as a thick arm reached over her shoulder to grab a slice of toast. Whipping her head around, she found herself nose to nose with Mal's grinning guard dog. Straightening, he nodded, "Ma'am," smirk growing at the look on her face, piling sausage and egg on top of the toast. Balancing his pilfered provisions in one hand, he hoisted a heavy black duffle to the other shoulder, whistling a piercing series of notes he had decided to call a song and cruising out of the doors with one last wink to the slack-jawed captain.

"Su!" Mari howled as she found her voice. A swish of fabric sounded through the open door to her second-in-command's room, followed by a second set -the expected set- of boots clomping through the rooms.

"Oh good, he's left." came the sigh as Su tripped over to the table, a sheet pulled in a becoming toga around her, offset by the re-dirtied boots on her feet. "You know he shows a girl the loveliest of times, but doesn't have a clue when to get the-"

"What was Jayne doing in our Fhloston Paradise suite?!" Mari cut through the little speech.

"I told him you would never speak to me again if I let him put me over the  _Genrou's_  control panel to..." she trailed off as she settled into her seat, wincing gently as she sat. "... um. Punish me. For kidnapping Vera. So we came back here and he put me over his knee instead." She smiled pleasantly at the captain, twirling a fork between the fingers of her right hand. "Pass the sausages?"

"I think you've had enough sausage." Mari said dryly, but handed the girl the plate all the same. "He got the gun back, I suppose?" Su smirked unpleasantly, one hand fishing into a drape of her toga.

"Yes, well. I got this." She came up with the horrid bundle of knitting, chucking it to her captain.

"Lovely, his hat. And just when I was beginning to believe I could live without seeing it on your becoming head again." the captain rolled her eyes. "I'm sure this will do us better than a serious firearm."

"Open the damn hat, Cap'n." Mari narrowed her eyes at the woman, glancing down at the hat with sudden trepidation.

"Go on!" Su speared a chunk of pineapple, eyes closing as she bit into it. "Ohhhhh, yum. You'll like it, I promise." Mari's fishing fingers came up with a sizeable roll of bills, eyes widening as she took in the large denominations.

"Where did you-? How did you-?"

"Hey Kouji, why the hell's the door wide open?" Kouji demanded, strolling through said portal, still in his suit from the night before. "I dunno Kouji, but what's with the spread? The broads havin' a party?"

"No, my li'l flighty fairy friend. Mal's pet mule just left, and Cap'n ordered us a spectacular amount of food for breakfast. Now c'mon, tuck in 'fore she eats it all herself!"

"And where have you been?" Mari demanded, shaking the wad of bills at the rumpled man.

"Uh-oh, she wants to know where we've been, Kouji. Hmmm... Tell her we've been seeing the sights, but only if she tells us where she got the dough." Kouji flung himself in a chair, revealing a prominent hickey glowing on his neck.

"I won at poker." Su declared triumphantly. "What happened to your throat?"

"We won at life." Kouji returned with a grin. "I wonder what the Cap'n won."

"One night without the two of you. Now shut up so I can enjoy this feast."

"Yes Ma'am!"

* * *

_Music: I Want my Hat Back – Digger_

 

 

 

 


	37. Interlude: Laundry Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has to do laundry eventually.

Mari leaned back against the ships atmoscreen, basking in the sunshine and warm breeze of the day. They'd put down In a grassy field, nothing but rolling hills as far as the eye could see. A terraformed planet, it was mostly farming colony, fields of lush, growing beauty only broken up by tiny villages set into the hills. This was the life she and Zach had always dreamed of retiring to, the thought summoning a pang in her chest. Tomatoes, goats, a little hillside home... She blinked back threatening tears, taking a sip of her mint julep to brace herself, letting her mind calm as she rolled the liquid over her tongue, gazing out across the field.

Su and Kouji were running through the lines of laundry they'd rigged from the ship's prow, shrieking as they sprung out from behind sheets and clothing at each other like children, tumbling in the grass, laying on their backs and staring up at the cloth flapping dry in the breeze before leaping up to start again.

She didn't have her goats or hillside home. She'd lost all that with her love. But she had these two bandits, some tomatoes, her ship, and her freedom. She had the life she had made for herself; for better or worse, she would keep it.

* * *

_ Music: Across the Universe – Jim Sturgess _

 


	38. Interlude: Operation Blue Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kouji and Mari have a really, really bad idea.

Su huffed into the living room, dropping a pile of fluffy blue towels on the messy table, scattering Mari and Kouji's poker chips and earning the woman a volley of cursing as the two looked up at her.

"Well that wasn't terribly nice, Kouji. I agree, Kouji. Wonder what crawled up this dame's skirt and bit her? 'Ey, Su, what's yer damage?"

"They're all blue!" Su spat.

"I can see that." Mari eyed the pile of towels, waiting for the point.

"All the towels. All the sheets. The gorram pillows. They're all blue!" Kouji and Mari both managed to look rather sheepish, slouching into the couch to try and disappear from Su's gaze as she scowled at them. They couldn't help it if the dye ran!

"I take it sorry won't cut it this time?" Mari looked up apologetically, earning herself a towel in the face.

"Blue hair! Blue towels! Christ help you, if I see one more blue stain ANYWHERE I am going to tie you down and bleach you both in your sleep."

"Ooh, that sounds fun." Kouji piped up, spitting out a mouthful of terry cloth a second later as Su stomped off, tossing the bundles in their respective rooms before slamming the door to her own.

"Probably shouldn't have said that." Mari chuckled, taking a nip from the flask she recovered from under the pile of towels, snorting as Kouji picked towel fibers off his tongue.

* * *

Su was having a perfectly lovely dream about a certain spacer with cherry-red hair and a lascivious act she was fairly certain was illegal on some planets when she realized she was drifting toward wakefulness. She let the dream slip through her fingers like water, floating toward the surface of consciousness with a groan. Eyes closed, she took in her reality for a moment - the stale air of the ship, the feel of the couch beneath her, the fingers tugging at her hair as a cool moisture seeping against her scalp, the voices whispering above her.

"Shhhh, careful, careful! I think she's waking up."

"Guh, I only got this one puny section bleached!"

Bleached?! Her eyes flew open, meeting the faces hovering over her. Two blue-haired cretins who had the temerity to grin drunkenly at her. She went to sit up, only to be pushed back onto the couch by her captain as Kouji's hands continued their work on her hair.

"What're ya doin?"

"Shhh," the captain soothed, patting her cheek, "yer gonna love it."

"Love what?!" Kouji grinned.

"Kouji, should we tell her? She's not gonna like it Kouji. Hey, ya never know, why not tell 'er? Okay, okay... We're blueing you!"

"Ain't no way in hell!" She fought her way up from the couch, towering over the two grinning drunks as a lank, sodden lock of hair fell in her face. Even as her eyes focused on it, she could see her normally dark hair growing lighter as the color seeped out of it.

"You two are going to die. Incredibly painfully!" Su snarled, bearing down on them, sending them laughingly skittering backward. "I'm going to crush you with my bare hands!" The last was shrieked as she chased them from the room, boots pounding on metal as she sought revenge.

* * *

Mari looked up from the ships controls as her first mate flopped into the co-pilot's chair, swinging her boots onto the console and blowing the long lock of white hair out of her face.

"Well, I think it looks cunning." she ventured with an apologetic smile.

"Still ain't talkin' to ya, Chief."

"Right."

* * *

_Music: Goddamn Blue Yodel #7 – Slim Cessna's Auto Club_

 


	39. Interlude: Driving Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is why we don't let Su drive.

"Okay, now, gently, ease that gear forward. Gently, gently - Christ!" The captain gripped the armrests of the co-pilot's seat as her precious ship rocketed forward into the verse, the woman at the wheel cackling madly as the ships engine whirred madly at the pressure.

"Kouji, didn't you tell her this was a bad plan?! I did Kouji, I did indeed!" Kouji's voice screamed up from the mess.

"Okay, stop, stop- Slowly, don't- _Wo de ma_!" The captain turned on the girl. "You are so gorram lucky we have inertial dampeners. We'd all be a puddle of plasma on the sub-ethers, the way you drive." Su scowled, crossing her arms defensively.

"Ships meant to be flown, Boss, not putted around the galaxy like a gorram grandma! Who are you, Starwind?" Mari glowered at her first mate, irritated at the unfair comparison.

"Oh, I can fly the hell out of this ship,  _mei mei_. But the  _Genrou's_  an antique, a concept I expect your outlaw brain has trouble parsing. It means we're careful with him when we can be, and save the fancy tricks and Crazy Ivan's for when we absolutely need them. He can handle what we throw at him, but I'd prefer to not fly him into the atmo before his time. Savvy?"

"Yeah, yeah." The scowl on Su's face twisted into a pout. "Gimme one more go?"

Mari sighed, closing her eyes. "Fine... Okay, eaaaase into speed, gently..."

* * *

_Music: Road to Nowhere – Nouvelle Vague_

 


	40. Broken Heroes: Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strap in kids, this is it. The big 'un.

It had happened the same way every night since they'd re-entered Sol. Kouji would wake up to the sound a strangled shrieks, cries muffled by pillows, limbs thrashing in cloth. The first night he'd had the sudden illogical thought that someone was being killed aboard their little ship by some monster snuck in from the dark space outside their hull. But then came the soft sound of Mari's feet whispering across the hall and into Su's room beside his, a gentle voice tangling with tears, noises of fear turning to soft murmurs of sleep as the younger woman drifted off and the captain returned to her room.

As usual he was of two minds, too used to looking for both sides of the story, a way to justify his final actions to his conscience. The women had gotten along fine without him before, he reasoned; there was no cause for him to interject himself into the dynamic. But 'other Kouji' questioned that thought, suggesting that he was part of their little family now, speculated that he should help carry that weight. Despite the validity of that argument, something about this nighttime activity had the air of secrecy about it, and for the first three nights he'd forced himself to roll over and trudge back into the depthless expanses of sleep.

That luxury evaded him tonight. Laying there, he listened to her struggle against the dreams, realizing that tonight the captain wasn't going to wake. He was reluctant to enter the girl's room – it was hardly fitting – but he couldn't leave her to fight those demons herself. He'd seen them in real life, knew their ugly faces. He had watched what they'd done to her, so long ago, and hated that they could revisit her on a whim. Hated that he hadn't helped her then. Taking care to keep quiet, Kouji slipped from his bed into her quarters, gently shutting the door behind him.

He'd never been in the room before; she kept her quarters private, the little cube her one hiding space on the ship. He peered around the dim, swirling light of the room, taking in the strange knickknacks and treasures that littered the surfaces: Dia des los Muertos statuettes stood next to ancient photographic equipment leaking sand across her bureau; a night-light swirled sea creatures over the curious art that hung pell-mell on the walls. Threadbare carpets of different shapes and sizes littered the floor, clashing horribly as they covered the metal surface. Books stacked in towering piles against the walls threatened to tip once the ship hit atmo.

A small whimper from the corner drew his attention to the bed, a nest of mismatched pillows and blankets surrounded by a thick mosquito net. The girl inside was nothing more than a writhing mass of shadows in the dim light of the room, body struggling against a creature unseen. His heart tightened in his chest as he pushed the canopies aside, crawling onto the platform of her bed, hands carefully clasping on the girls fighting arms as he whispered her name into the night.

"Su..." Her eyes flew open, unfocused, darting wildly about the room before coming to rest on his face. She stared at him a long moment, breath catching in her chest as she searched his eyes, trying to make sense of his presence.

"Where am I?" her voice trembled, barely audible to his ears.

"The _Ge-_ " he thought better. "You're on Mari's ship. We're in Sol. Headin' to Mars orbit to meet up with the _Bebop_."

She threw herself into his arms with a relieved sob, clinging to him like a child. Releasing the breath he was holding, he eased back into the bed, stroking her hair as she cried herself hoarse into his t-shirt. They lay curled together in the midst of the tangle of pillows and blankets on her bed, Kouji patiently cradling her as the tears slowed, turning to quiet sniffling as she traced the lettering on his shirt with a finger.

"Sorry I got yer shirt wet."

He shrugged, knowing she couldn't see it. "It'll dry."

She burrowed against him, snuggling under his chin. "Can you stay until I fall asleep?" she pleaded. "Mae-chan always does." Another secret, that intimate nickname. He'd rarely heard the younger woman refer to the ship's owner as anything other than "Cap'n", "Chief", "Boss" or some other sarcastic honorific.

"Where do you know... Mari, from?"

She was already drifting back to sleep, her answer garbled with exhaustion as she mumbled back, "'mentary 'cademy...'for I... ran 'way."

"You went to Academy?" He could hardly believe the rough-edged thief had ever taken part in formal education. Her head nodded imperceptibly against his chest, hair tickling his face.

"Schol'ship. Ran 'way...for... Gen-chan."

"Why?"

"Shh. Sleeps." She dropped a light kiss on his t-shirt in apology for not answering, slipping under the dark cloak of sleep as Kouji pulled her closer, not quite understanding the strange guilt he felt as he remembered her as a scrappy, bruised teenager.

* * *

He woke in the morning to find the captain hovering at the edge of the bed, face unreadable as it gazed at the two of them curled in the blankets.

"It's not-" Kouji began nervously, remembering Mari's earnest threat when he'd first come aboard.

"Shh. Let her sleep. Come with me." the woman cut him off with a whisper, beckoning the blue-haired man to follow her as she slipped quietly from the room. Once they found themselves in the living room, Mari pushed a coffee at Kouji, dropping into her chair as she eyed him across the room quietly.

"I swear, boss, I didn't go in there with any sort of intentions. She was cryin', and it seemed only fair to let you sleep this time." She nodded slowly, masking any emotions from flitting across her face.

"It's because we're heading to Mars." She started hesitantly. "She's... anxious."

"Because of her past with the gang?"

"Because of a lot of things." Mari picked up her own coffee, taking a sip of the dark liquid and seeming to come to a decision. "There's a lot that planet did to our girl that would beat down a lesser person. Bright kid. Got a free ride to academy, but she threw that and her family away on that pathetic red-head you two ran with for a while. You saw how that went for her." She shrugged.

"She finally pulled herself away the only way she knew how - started stealing ships and ran as far and as fast away from Mars as she could get." A sigh. "But she pissed off the wrong folk too many times, and the verse rejected her, grabbed her and slammed her back onto that planet that done her wrong. She stayed in prison a year 'fore they released her to a halfway house for criminals and drug addicts. I guess their reasoning for releasing her so quick was that the streets would only be worse for her. She couldn't leave that place for fear someone in the Reikaku gang would notice her and drag her back."

Mari's eyes looked into middle-space, seeing something not visible to Kouji - the past, a ghost, some vision of what could have been. "I'd just gotten it into my mind to get my own ship when I saw notice of her release on Big Shot. I remembered her being clever but... rough. Perfect compliment to my polished training." She grinned ruefully. "So I got my ass to Mars as fast as I could. When I walked in through the doors of the place, she was fighting off three other women who were trying to get her boots off her. She was bruised, beaten, but still howling, scratching and spitting like a deranged animal. So I waded in and dragged her out of that mess. I knew then that, no matter what I had to do, I'd get her off that rock."

"You know what she's done? The things she did with... him? You know what... he done to her?"

"She told me some. I read the rest in her file." She sighed again, closing her eyes as she searched for words. "I wouldn't be bringing her near that place again if the Bebop didn't need our help. Spike and Jet – they're friends. I owe them."

"I get it, Cap." Kouji nodded, "The world can't stop spinning for any of us."

"No," she agreed, "and our girls gotta face her past sometime. The least I could do was make sure the boogie man was gone first."

* * *

Jet met her on _Genrou's_ bridge, his short-range ship docked neatly to _Genrou's_ side as the ship held orbit, Mars looming large and red below, little terraformed paradises nestled snugly in its craters. The man was agitated, running his fingers through his thinning hair, a scowl plastered to his face.

"Jet?" Mari rose from her seat, riding to meet him, concern written on her face. It wasn't like him to be this flustered. "Where's Spike? Why didn't you wait for us to land?"

"Spike's run off." He sighed, letting her pull him down the hallway into the living space, seating him down on one of the well-loved couches.

"Do you know where to?" She sat on the top of the couch behind him, hand falling to his shoulder to give it a small squeeze. "He is known to go out rambling on his own, time to time."

"No, this is different." Jet sighed, leaning back to look up at Mari. "Bounty came in over the 'net, big one. 28 million." Mari couldn't help the low whistle that escaped her. "Got him all up in a huff. You could tell something wasn't right. He got all quiet when I asked him about it. Asked me how I lost my arm. Can't see what that has to do with much of anything, and I told him as much. He just buttoned up and walked out."

"Bounty got a name on 'im?" Mari queried, circling the couch to sit next to Jet, fingers finding the keyboard of the small vid screen, dialing up her usual network.

"Yen-something. Yenrai, I think? Some fat suit who looks important." Mari's fingers stilled suddenly, her need for the vid screen negated as Jet spoke a name she never wanted to hear again.

"Mao Yenrai?" She queried hesitantly, eyes closing as Jet nodded.

"Yeah, that was it."

"Jet, how much do you know about Spike?" Her voice was dark, heavy. Her eyes finding his, all hints of her good nature gone as she stared him down.

"Enough." He shrugged. "Why?" She didn't answer him, sitting back heavily, her hands covering her face as she tried to swallow the memories that came rushing over her.

"I don't know if I can do this for you, Jet." She swallowed thickly, her breath coming faster than she'd like. "I don't mess with the Red Dragon. Not anymore. Not after... not since I left Mars behind."

"Red Dragon? What's that got to do with any of this?" Jet scratched his head. "I just need you to track down Spike, talk some sense into him. I can't do my job is he's going to go all brooding on me, carrying around secrets."

"Christ, Jet! Don't you ever read the fine print?" Mari leaned forward, fingers flying over the keys as she called up the bounty, turning it to flicker in his face. Her finger pointed to the face smiling placidly on the screen, her face grim as she looked at him. "Mao Yenrai is the Capo of the Red Dragon Syndicate!" It was Jet's turned to be stunned.

"Big fish." He whispered. "Why's that got you so spooked?"

"Because the Red Dragon Syndicate killed my husband." She ground out the words between her teeth, ignoring Jet's look of surprise.

"Shit, girl. I didn't know." He fumbled for the right words, his arm falling over her shoulder to pull her to his side.

"That's cause I never told you." She cursed herself as she felt tears burning the back of her eyes, sniffing hard as she got to her feet. Jet's brotherly sympathies too overwhelming for her. She let her gaze fall to the vid screen, feeling the seething hatred bubble up inside her, black and ugly. "I'll do it, so long as you promise me one thing."

"What's that?" She looked at him, long and hard.

"You and yours sit tight until this is over. And you don't look at me any differently when I go do what I'm going to have to do to find Spike."

* * *

Music: The Whistler – The White Buffalo


	41. Broken Heroes: War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old habits die hard.

She stayed on the couch long after Jet left, eyes tracing the edges of a spot of light that danced on the wall, a reflection from some shiny surface she couldn't place. Her eyes spun over its surface, picking at the color as her mind blurred the unbidden memories into a constant stream of sorrow and anger. The past she always fought so hard to forget on the long nights of insomnia in the bridge. The nights she woke up reaching for his warm body that wasn't there. The memories of dreams that wouldn't happen when she picked a tomato, stretched out on the grass, docked on a new planet.

_It had been one year to the day since their wedding. He had surprised her with reservations to some fancy new restaurant that had opened downtown that they probably couldn't afford on their entry-level paychecks. She would have been happy with eating takeaway in an alley, as long as it was with him, but he always wanted to treat her, give her the best, live up to the lifestyle she'd grown up in. So they were dressed to the nines, him in a suit, her in a gown, hands entangled on the tabletop, glasses centimeters from clinking to his toast when the shots rang out from in front of the building._

She wouldn't think of this now.

_The way his eyes had crinkled at the corners with delight as he spoke about their love, golden light reflecting from the champagne across his face._

Spike was the priority, not her revenge.

_His eyes had swung to the front, their celebration instantly forgotten. He was always a hero first._

No. She couldn't think about it. It would cloud her, turn her around.

_Their hands tangled on the tabletop, their rings shining in the light._

This would only get her killed. Mari shook her head to clear it, wiping the salty damp from her cheeks as she rose from her chair, moving toward her quarters. It was time to prepare. There were weapons to gather and plans to make, criminal records to recall or look up, city maps to remember, schematics to find...

She had a war to plan.

* * *

"You're not going alone."

Mari was carefully packing the black canvas bag on her bed, slipping in printouts and clothes on top of the meagre supply of weapons she had already packed. The voice came from behind her, so quiet and low she could have ignored it if she wanted to. So she did.

"Y'hear me? You're not going alone." It came again, firmer this time.

"Well, you're certainly not going with me." She frowned over her shoulder at her first mate, the girl standing stoic in the doorway, hands deep in the pockets of her jeans. At Mari's comment she made a noise of disdain, sneering.

"Like hell I'm not. I got your back, you got mine, remember? We may not be a two person operation anymore, but I ain't abandoning you anytime soon."

"You're going to stay here with Kouji in orbit 'round Mars. You know what'll happen you set foot on the surface." Mari looked at the girl earnestly, quietly stating, "I'll be fine, Su."

The girl shook her head at her captain, face serious for once.

"I don't like it, Mae. It's too... murky for ya to see. This situation with Spike is all clouded up by your memories." Her face was twisted in conflict, upset at the haze already surrounding her captain, "I don't want ya to throw yourself on your sword for that damn bounty hunter."

Mari gave a short laugh, shaking her head. "Is there anything you don't hear on this ship?"

"Not if I'm in the engine room and can open the comms to spy on you." Su smiled ruefully. "Please let me come with you. I won't get caught. Promise, Cap'n." Mari sighed, turning to her first mate. Anger, she could take. Blustering and railing and scowls. But the look on Su's face was far from any of that, the woman's features crossed with sadness. Sadness, and a touch of fear.

"I'm not putting you through this." Mari shook her head firmly. "Not going to risk it. It's not worth it, Su." Su crossed the room, her arms falling around Mari, her chin resting on the older woman's shoulder.

"You gotta stop carryin' that weight by yourself." She whispered quietly. "I know you're in charge, but I can't keep sittin' by while you run off cleanin' everyone's messes 'cept your own." She felt Mari sigh heavily, the end of it coming out in a conflicted growl.

"You really want to do this with me?" It was a tentative question, Mari's shoulders tensing as she waited for Su's response. "This isn't a milk run, Su. I'm not going to play nice."

"Least I can do. You done plenty for me already. I ain't paid you back proper." She released her Captain, stepping back as Mari turned to sit heavily on the bed. "'sides, Spike's a friend, and friends don't let friends walk into a world of hurt if they can help it." Mari's eyebrow quirked up slightly.

"That so? Because I can recall several times where you..."

"Christ, Cap! I'm tryin' to be poetical, here!" She threw up her hands as she fell to the bed beside Mari, eyeing her weakly.

"Looks like these dames are planning on taking shore leave without us, Kouji. Sure looks that way, Kouji. That's mighty rude of them, leaving us behind. I'll say." Kouji stood in the doorway, checking the sight on one of his guns before sticking it in one of his empty holsters. Mari groaned.

"No talking you two out of this?"

"No." Su shook her head, resolve set.

"Same goes for us, Cap." Kouji nodded.

* * *

Su and Mari both felt the weight of their return as they set foot to soil on Tharsis, treading softly, as if the two women were waiting for the planet to open up and swallow them. During her last visit, Mari had spent as little time as possible on planet, keeping to the shadows, slipping in and out before anyone even realized she had been there, a docking manifest the only proof _Genrou_ had even touched down.

Kouji's presence at least calmed Su some, their shared history mildly comforting to both of the outlaws. Mari's face was stony, all of her good nature gone, jaw tense as she ground her teeth quietly. She pushed her past to the pit of her stomach, feeling it churn there, dark and uncomfortable. She didn't have time for it.

"So, where do we start?" Su looked out over the terraformed crater, the twin cities sparkling in the morning light.

"I have an idea."

* * *

"Stay here." Mari left Kouji and Su outside of the small convenience store, hoping that the busy street would be enough cover for the two. A couple of nobodies in a sea of faces. "I won't be long."

The bells chimed softly as she opened the door, a welcome change from the digital tones that rang out in many of the businesses on Tharsis, alerting shopkeeps to their customers. Annie had always been old-fashioned. Mari had liked that about her.

"Well, fuck me sideways." Annie drawled flatly as Mari walked into the small convenience shop, her gaze level and stern. "Today's a day for ghosts, isn't it?" Mari smiled weakly, trying to keep her step calm as she approached the counter, her fingertips fidgeting with a display of plastic lighters.

"Long time, Annie."

"That it is." Mari could smell the drink on the woman, her eyes trailing to the tumbler tucked behind the register, a half drained bottle of bourbon sitting beside it on top of an overturned picture frame, the photograph turned face down as the backside was relegated to a coaster.

"I missed him, didn't I?" Mari's voice echoed her defeat, answering her own question. Annie closed her eyes, a heavy sigh leaving her.

"Don't rightly know who you're talking about." Annie gruffed.

"Look," Mari began tersely, running her hand through her hair, "I don't know what history you two have, and I'm not about to dig into it. I just need to find him, Annie. That's all. No bounty, no trouble. Just want to bring him home before he goes and gets himself killed."

"He died three years ago, girl. You leave that man buried and get out of my shop."

"Annie, please. I know we don't know each other well, but I..."

"Out. Now." She ground out, her eyes downturned. Mari nodded sharply, turning to leave without another word. She knew a dead-end when she ran into one. Annie was rattled, that much was obvious. The bells once again heralded her passing as she stepped out into the street.

"Well?" Su looked up, pushing herself away from the wall she had been leaning on.

"Dead end. We missed him, and she ain't talking." Mari sighed. Annie had been the one person she hadn't been afraid to track down. The woman had ties to the syndicate, but Mari had never known how deep. She only traded a few words with the woman over the years, mostly over new packs of cigarettes when she and Spike were out in the evenings drinking and hitting the town. She would always have a smile and a kind word for Mari, and occasionally whispers or small bundles slipped quietly across the counter for Spike.

"We're not going to get anywhere fast this way, Kouji. Seems that way, Kouji." Kouji huffed, sparing Mari sideways glance.

"What do you have in mind?" Mari chewed her lip nervously, already afraid of his answer.

"Eiken." Su paled as the name slipped past his tongue, her eyes wide. "He's a slob, but he pays attention. Was small potatoes back when we ran with the Reikaku gang, but he had some connections in the syndicate. Odds are he's heard somethin' or other."

"Right. Let's go. You're on point." She nodded, turning to fix Su with a hard look. "You can head back if you need to, no one'll think any less of you for it." Su shook her head, falling into step behind the two.

* * *

Music: Rival – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club


	42. Broken Heroes: Downward Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has a dark side.

It was easier for Mari to be attentive to Su's emotions than it was to pay heed to her own as they howled, wild in her head. It was easier to look for a reason to send the girl back to the ship with Kouji playing bodyguard than it was to feel that she had to keep her growing rage in check.

Her fingers were twitchy for revenge, hand curling and recurling over the grip of her weapon. She thirsted for it, she hungered for it, she ached for it. To see that unforgettable face, that shock of albino hair - the memory played over and over behind her eyes, a turmoil she sought to mask behind chain-smoking and hovering over her first mate. As they stood across the street from the Reikaku gang's shithole of a headquarters, she felt her hand curl over her caster's handhold yet again, a breathlessness seizing her chest in it's iron grip, a scream threatening to rip through her in impatience.

She turned to the girl instead, taking in the fiercely scowling mouth, the dark, hooded eyes.

"Go. Just go back to the ship." She heard the words come out of her mouth, barely feeling them. "We'll take it from here. Better you didn't get thrown back in the slammer."

"Shut up, Cap'n," came the growl, and the girl was stomping across the busy street, skimmers and rickshaws swerving as she ignored the traffic in favor of her destination.

They descended to the half-abandoned pool hall, the stale stink of beer and sweat claiming the smoky air that Su cut through as she strode up to the bar. Ignoring the looks coming her way, she dropped onto a stool, nodding to the young bartender behind the counter.

"Gin for me, and whatever my friends here want. Put it on my tab."

"What's the name?"

"Su Kou." her voice echoed across the silent room, murmurings rising from the shadows in the wake of her declaration.

"I don't believe you have the right to that name anymore, spacer!" The rasp pulled Mari and Kouji's attention from their comrade at the bar, attention turning toward the owner of the voice - a huge, wild-looking man bearing down on their friend.

Su merely sighed, lighting a cigarette at the bar, jerking her chin at the bartender. "Put a lime in the gin, will ya?"

The man at her back stepped forward with a growl, grasping her shoulder in his meaty paw. "Did you hear-"

Su's hand flew to her side, grasping a forgotten beer bottle on the bar and smashing it across the man's ugly face. Her hand fisted in his collar, dragging him, stunned, down to her level as her other hand rose to grind the shattered end of the bottle into his neck.

"Oh, I heard you Ashitare. I also heard that your boss is dead. Bled out in an alley by some bounty hunter, like the cocky bastard he was." She jerked him closer, teeth bared, eyes slitting at the men putting hands to weapons in the shadows. "Do any of you fools remember me? I was Genrou's old lady 'til I saw fit to leave this sorry outfit behind. I helped build this gorram gang from the ground up, and this is the homecoming I get?!" She jerked the broken bottle across the large man's throat, pulling a squeal from him as the skin tore beneath the glass; he pawed at his neck to stop the bleeding as she dropped him from her grasp. Throwing the bloody shard to the ground, she slipped the weapons from the holsters at her hips as she slunk toward the middle of the room.

"I'm sure some of ya can remember what I was like back then. Back when I was... just a li'l girl." Her eyes darted from face to face, fury and accusations in their depths. "Back when I was under Genrou's... protection." She sneered the last, shaking her head. "I'm sure you can remember some of the... games... you taught me then? Let me be the first to assure ya. Now that I'm grown up, I've only gotten better games. And I've gotten far better at winning."

A sadistic smile passed over her face as she took one last gaze around the room, thumbs cocking her weapons, the clicks ringing loud through the windowless room.

"Here, I'll even make it easy for ya. All I want to know is where Eiken is. But the timer's runnin' out, so I hope you're ready." She raised her pistols.

"Let's play a game."

* * *

Mari swallowed heavily, watching as Su displayed a side of herself that had only existed on paper before. Dark and dangerous, a far cry from the manic first mate who played fast and loose with their ship's engines, a joyous cackle never far behind her lips. Her keen eyes caught one of the younger gang members trying to slip away, and her gun was in her hand before she even realized it, thumb cocking it to dangerous life.

"No one leaves." She hissed, stilling the boy in his tracks, eyes narrowing as he looked at her, somewhere between fear and a stupid, street bred defiance. "No one." She growled. "Now get me Eiken."

"Eiken ain't here." One of the thugs muttered, hands twitching, eager for a weapon. Su leveled one of her pistols at him, face stony.

"Then get him here. You have five minutes. Then we shoot one of you." She warned, cool and dangerous. The ghost of a dark smile crossed her features, a mockery of her usual countenance. "Then you have four minutes. Then we shoot one of you."

* * *

It took five minutes exactly for the gang to realize the women weren't bluffing as the first body hit the floor. Unfortunately for the rest of them, it took Eiken another eight minutes to arrive, the large man crashing through the door as the body of the third man cooled on the floor at Mari's feet, her pistol still smoking as what remained of the assembled Reikaku gang sat against the wall, disarmed and shaking as they prayed Su's gaze wouldn't fall on them next.

"You're late." Su sniffed, staring him down over her pistol. She was twitchy, the stress of her grotesque homecoming wearing on her slowly.

"The fuck is going on here?" He spat at her, hands disappearing into his coat and reappearing with a gun only a man of his size could get away with concealing. Mari was on him in a flash, her Caster coming down heavily on the back of his thick skull, boots raining down on him as he fell heavily to the filthy floor, her eyes glazed in an insane fury.

"Christ!" Kouji yelped, locking his arms around Mari and pulling her off of the man before she stomped him into a bloody smear on the concrete. "Easy, girl." He whispered into her ear, breathing a poorly concealed sigh of relief as she eased up, sense returning back to her. He hadn't expected the women to actually kill anyone. Shoot them, sure. They'd done it plenty since he joined up with them. But he hadn't seen them outright kill anyone, especially in cold blood. Knowing they had, and watching them do it, were two completely different things. "These are the small fries." He warned, his voice low in her ear. "Eiken is a bit higher up. You're were just shootin' fish in a barrel before. Now you just invited a barracuda in."

Su hovered over the hulking man, tossing him a disgusted glance as she kicked his gun away, kneeling in his face to scoop it up.

"We're going to have us a little chat, Eiken. How's that sound?"

"Jesus, kid, I don't know what crawled up your skirt." He spat at her. "You're going to regret this someday."

"Maybe," she sniffed, "but not today. Today you're going to tell me what I want to know. Kouji, you're with me. Cap'n, you got the front?" Mari nodded, her caster glowing softly in her hand as she locked the shell neatly in the chamber. "Good. Any of these little fuckers get any brilliant ideas, you're free to do to them what you did to Genrou."

Murmurs erupted among the bruised and bleeding gaggle of thugs as Kouji dragged the beaten Eiken off the floor and into a room behind the bar. Su followed, with a sigh, stretching her arms above her head. As she turned to shut the door, Su's eyes met Mari's in a cold stare that went through the captain, the girl's face a disturbing mask of boredom, a placid smile touching her lips. There was nothing left of Su there that Mari could see.

It made her wonder what was left of her.

* * *

Su sank into a chair with a sigh, pushing the white lock of hair behind her ear as she crossed her legs. She considered the rotund man before her, watching as he swayed, eyes full of obstinate anger.

"On yer knees."

"I ain't kneeling for no -" Kouji kicked his knees out from behind, the man falling heavily to cement floor at her feet. He sat back in his heels with a groan, a scowl.

"I know you remember me, Eiken. I know you remember the games Gen-chan taught me." She extended a foot, pressing her boot heel firmly into his groin, amusement playing about her lips as he sucked in a sharp breath. "I remember you being an... educational game yourself." Pulling her foot away from the man, she stood, circling around him, her fingers trailing through the sweat on his exposed scalp. "What's Red Dragon doing up for bounty, Eiken? Did Mao turn?" Her voice was barely audible as she lowered her mouth to his ear, fingers prodding uncomfortably at the man, twisting flesh here, pressing hard into a nerve there.

"I ain't tellin' you shit, traitor." He spat at her feet, back defiantly straight as he looked at the wall before him. "Genrou's dead. You ran out long time 'go. You don't got no sway 'round here."

"Perhaps." She straightened, circling back to his front, pulling a long thin knife from its sheath on her belt, tapping its wicked point against her thigh. The sadistic smile was back in force as she gazed down at the man.

"Kouji, please join Mari up front. Eiken's being bashful. He never did like an audience."

"Boss– I- Su, I don't know that's such a-"

"Kouji. That was an order, not a request. Do I have to repeat myself?" His mind spun at the tone, remembering another time, a past life. Visions of a vicious young woman had laid half-buried in sight of the sunny first mate of the Genrou; the whipcrack tone of the woman before him now brought them marching back, a half-starved teenager before him once again, asking if he wanted to join her game.

He responded now as he had then, turning from the room, trying to flee the avalanche of recollection. But it was too late; as he eased the door closed behind him, the tumult buried him, blinding him to the room, the men, the captain standing before him.

Behind the door, the screaming started.

* * *

Music: Crystalized – The Xx


	43. Broken Heroes: Just Keep Getting Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has some backstory.

He had joined the Reikaku gang at the usual age – 20, just out of puberty, considering himself a worldly man. He'd hitchhiked from Earth to Mars, running for the bright lights and the big city, eager to make a name for himself. He fell in almost too easily with the Reikaku gang, running odd jobs and petty heists for the thugs as he swiftly climbed the ranks. The boss had noticed his weird double speak quickly, taking a shine to this weird boy and saving some of the better work to throw his way, favors from the king of the streets.

The gang was mostly young punks then, declasse enough for the warring mafia clans who ran in the upper echelons of Mars to not view them as a threat. Genrou owned the back streets and alleys, the charismatic man already having made the move from rolling bodegas to collecting favors from them like tribute. He moved among the Mars scum like a king, a samurai lord with no class or scruples, ruling with fear and fists. If you pissed off the boss, he would beat you good, all blustering rage and chest thumping.

But the traitors, the interrogations he left to her.

Su. She was always there – tucked under the boss's arm, her hair curled around his fist like a leash; sitting quiescent on his lap, his hand tight around the back of her neck. A silent little pet, all dark eyes and boots and hair, far too young for the boss, not full-grown into her tall body yet. Her empty stare had made Kouji nervous at first, her eyes always searching for secrets, weaknesses. The Boss' little shadow, always creeping just around the corner, catching you out every time you didn't want to be heard.

The rumours swirled around her work – hidden scars that could only be speculated about, men that never came back out of that little room behind the bar. Her fury was silent; her victims were loud. It was always a question where so much rage came from in a girl not yet in the bloom of womanhood.

Psychotic, they said.

Family killed by assassins, they added.

Raised by beasts, was their final declaration.

It wasn't until he'd spent a night drinking the boss under the table, passing out in their safe house himself, that the mystery of the girl started making sense. The noises that woke him in the middle of the night were normal enough - the sound of lips meeting, soft moans, light grunts, skin on skin.

And then, so slowly he almost didn't notice, almost fell back asleep, it changed. Quiet sounds of discomfort cut through the moans. Hisses and gasps interrupted by the sound of ripping cloth. His stomach turned when she started talking, her disused voice a rasp in the night, cutting through the thin wall, spilling around the open doors as it escalated in pain.

"Ple-Please. Please Gen-chan, don- You're hurting me. Ple-" A sharp thud cut her off, a yelp devolving into whimpers and sniffles that dominated her side of the exchange as Genrou grunted, whispering obscenities to his child bride.

Kouji could hear her head smacking the wall rhythmically, the disused bed springs of the bare mattress creaking as the couple moved. He tried to tell himself that there was nothing that he could do; she was a killer, a psychotic animal, there was no protection she deserved or wanted or - suddenly, her hands were scrabbling at the other side of the wall above his head, the sound of a bodily struggle, Genrou's growls drowned out as her voice rose once more, wild, hysterical, pleading:

"No, Genrou, no, please, I can't go back to the hospital, please they just mock me an-no, no, no, pleee-" her voice broke out in a shriek, thin and girlish, bringing the image of Kouji's baby sister to the forefront of his mind, sending him scrambling to the corner, forcing up the nights meagre dinner and vast quantities of alcohol into a steaming, stinking pile where he fell to his hands and knees.

Her voice faded to ragged sobs, the boss' voice overtaking it in a triumphant, growling apex. But the sobs wasn't enough for the man– the sound of the man's fist on the girl's flesh brought forth a new wail, and Kouji couldn't stand it anymore, rising to his feet with an intent in his chest - an intent he couldn't identify, a determination that never came with the free and easy street life he played at.

He found himself in their door, watching as Genrou rose from the girl, her blood staining the tops of his thighs as bruises bloomed on her skin, blood seeping from between her lips, her thighs. A deep gash on her side, once stitched shut, had broken open, festering and raw, spilling blood onto the mattress. She lay there, limp, shuddering, keening helplessly in her pain.

Kouji must have made a noise, a gasp, a grunt of sympathy, something, because both their eyes were on him, Genrou's heated and amused as he gestured to the broken doll still sprawled half across his lap, declaring with the air of a host, "All yours, buddy."

She just looked through him, past him, her eyes glassy, dead. "Whadda ya say, Su?" Genrou pressed a thumb to the flesh just below the open wound, hinting, coaxing.

"Do you want to play?" the words had gurgled out past the blood on her cracked lips, barely loud enough to discern what she was trying to say.

He had run. As far and as fast as he could from them, hopping on the nearest ship he could work to Jupiter, planet hopping, gang hopping, job hopping. Forgetting the girls face, her eyes, the sight of her ragged body bleeding and broken on that dirty mattress.

When he'd seen her on Whitefall, he'd just barely recognized her, had left that face behind years ago. The wild grin, the life that flowed through her, the crazed manic energy – he'd almost convinced himself it couldn't be the same girl. But seeing her deadened eyes now, the knife in her hand... all the memories came flooding back. With it came the shame at his own cowardice, the anger at a dead man. The need to protect her. Protect both these women.

He realized Mari was staring at him, eyes fierce as they searched his pale, slack face, repeating a question he'd ignored in his daze.

"What's going on in there?"

"She..." he tried, failing as he reached for the words. How could he even begin to explain it? All he could come up with was the girls threat: "She's playing a game."

They kept an eye on the men, watching the trembling and fear grow with each pained shriek, each desperate cry. Who knew Eiken had so much backbone in him?

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, a long pause that stretched into forever, breaking only when Su came out from the small room at the back, knife in holster, throwing a bloody towel on the bar and rolling her sleeves down. Her clothes were spotless; her boots told a different story.

"C'mon." she snapped, ignoring rank as she marched past Kouji and Mari toward the stairs. "I've got a lead."

"What about these guys?" Mari had gestured in a wide arc with her caster. "What's to stop them from following us?"

Su whirled in the door, pulling a pistol from its holster and shooting the man closest to her in the kneecap.

"Anyone who tries to follow us get's worse. I see our names on Big Shot, on the underground wires, I come back here and I shut this sorry-ass club down. I burn it to the ground, and I salt the earth." She re-holstered her weapon, turning back to her captain. "Good? Let's go."

They went.

* * *

Music: Stellar Shadows – Icelandic Symphony Orchestra


	44. Broken Heroes: Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mari finally becomes an outlaw.

Jumping Eiken had only raised Mari's ire – seeing the man fall to the ground had awakened the warrior in her, primal need ruling out as she went at him with boots and pent-up rage. Striding out of the dank pool hall behind Su now, she struggled to bring herself under control, pushing down the bloody mindedness that shook her hands, set her nerves on edge, senses twitching. After years of running from her past, being back on this planet with the opportunity, the excuse to hunt the men from that night down – it was almost too much. It excited her, terrified her, ripped at her heart and mind. She hadn't felt this maniac excitement since those first years, since the days of quaffing the pills and booze, staying up all night to scribble frantic thoughts on the walls, staring at the pictures, memorizing the faces, picking out who was where, what the angles were in the fight...

_He had run from the restaurant in that fine suit, the one he kept such good care of - his only civilian formal wear. Why was she thinking that now? Why was she sitting here like some simpering girl fresh in her first year of Academy? Why hadn't she run sooner?_

_He was at the door by the time she forced herself to her feet, chasing after him out into the seething night, the dark lit by gunfire and tail lights. His service weapon was in his hand as his voice rang out. Heads had turned, but the shots had never stopped ringing out - she couldn't see where it came from, couldn't see whose finger pulled the trigger._

_Her eyes could only watch as the bullet exploded from his back, blood still warm as it rained across her face, her new dress, the bullet burying in the thin skin of her chest, halting only as it shattered her sternum, the bone only just saving her. It was as if her heart had genuinely broken, pain radiating down her limbs, muscles seizing tight as an involuntary cry left her lips, air forced from her body._

_She collapsed to the ground, lungs gasping for breath, the heavy weight of her husband's head falling to her lap. Everything hurt, every movement tore at her, but her hand forced itself up to his head, weaving into his hair, caressing him, stroking gently at his forehead, his temples. His glasses must have broken at the fall - she could feel a shard cut at her finger._

_"Zachary? Zach?"_

_She couldn't stop repeating his name, the word a prayer on her lips as she felt the warm liquid pool on her chest, pool under her body. People were running around her. Sirens sounded in the distance. The men with the guns were running to their cars, slamming doors, speeding away._

_He wasn't answering. His head was so heavy on her legs. Why wasn't he answering? Why wasn't he moving?_

_"Zach?"_

"Mari!" Su's hands were rough on her shoulders, shaking her out of her head. "Mae-chan, you ok?"

Mari looked at her hands, feeling the invisible weight in them as she curled and uncurled her fingers. She could still smell the blood, her mind's eye noting the dark stains that had never really left her, no matter how much skin she scrubbed off.

It still stayed with her. The smell of his blood. The taste...

"I'm ok." She lied, not even bothering with a forced smile. "What were you saying?" There was a detached placidity to the Captain that set Kouji's teeth on edge. The two women could have been discussing dinner plans or the weather, for all the concern they were showing. It wasn't normal.

"Seems like there's a push going down between the syndicates. One of the Dragons looking to take the entire pot. Don't know who. Probably one of Yenrai's kids, most like."

"Vicious." Mari growled. "Unless he had someone in his back pocket we didn't know about. There isn't anyone else it could be."

_The sight of pale hair as it disappeared into the car, tail lights smearing red across her vision. He had been there..._

"Vicious?" Kouji echoed, afraid of the answer.

"Ran with Spike back in the day, before he left the syndicate. There were three of them. Vicious, Spike, and Julia. Never saw the other two much, not until right before Julia went missing. I'd see him around. They...helped me out, back when I was looking for Su."

"Think she could be stirring this up? Eiken mentioned a woman kicking about, asking a lot of questions." Mari shook her head.

"Most likely all she's stirring up is daisies on a shallow grave. You don't leave the Red Dragon. 'Sides, she was never the chatty type. Did Eiken spill a description in the middle of all that screaming?"

"Nothing terribly useful. Said she was pretty, if a bit obvious. Laid it on a bit thick. Big rack, long legs, loud..."

* * *

Jet sat on the couch, muttering to himself as he eyed the bounty on the screen. Something wasn't sitting right with him. There was more to it, something just under the surface.

"This bounty's encrypted!" He informed Ein, the dog, raising his head with a small whine. "Ha! Watch the encryption master at work. We'll just type in Yenrai, and..."

The screen fritzed under his gaze, a new layer of the transmission revealing itself in front of his eyes. "Christ!"

The portable com rang, startling him from his screen.

"Spike? That you?"

"It's Mari, Jet. We don't have him yet." Mari's voice drifted through the earpiece. She sounded frustrated. Tired and on edge at the same time.

"Mari, I just broke through another layer of the transmission. There's more to this bounty than meets the eye. Some rival syndicate nonsense. The whole thing is a set up, a trap." He warned her, furious with himself that he hadn't thought to check for something like this sooner.

"I know, Jet." He blinked, jaw falling slack.

"You...you knew? Then why did you..?"

"Jet, I don't have time for this right now. Where is Faye?"

"What?"

"Faye! Where is she, Jet?" Mari growled at him, her patience wearing thin.

"No need to get salty with me." He huffed, growling back. "She left right after Spike after I shooed her out. She was getting in the way. Out shopping, most like."

" _Tamade_!" Mari spat into the phone. "I gotta go, Jet!"

"Mari? Wait!" The line went dead, clicking in his ear as she hung up her end of the call. "What the hell is going on, here?" He sat back on the couch, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand as the hiss of the door echoed through the quiet ship. "Faye, that you?" He growled, not bothering to look up, and not expecting anyone else.

"No." Spike's voice hit his ears, snapping him out of his sulk as he snapped upright.

"Where the hell you been?" He demanded, bolting to his feet and taking off after Spike down the hallway.

"Out." Spike answered, not even sparing Jet a sideways glance as he disappeared into his room.

"Spike? SPIKE!" His fist came down heavy on the door, the pounding going unheeded in silence. He kicked the door, cursing loudly before storming back to the common room, his comm to his ear as he tried to reach Mari. The comm clicked back at him.

She wasn't answering.

"It's Faye." Mari snapped her small comm closed, shoving it into her pocket with a snarl. "Stupid bitch never knows when to stay out of other people's business." She looked down the street cautiously, eyes unseeing as she tried to piece together the woman's motives. What she was looking for, and where she would go to find it. "She'll go right for Yenrai. She's not subtle enough to do otherwise, and she doesn't know Mars well enough to know where else to look but right at him."

"So where is Yenrai?" Su queried quietly.

"That's what we need to find out. This is where we split up, _mei mei_." Su and Kouji both opened their mouths to protest. Mari only held up her hand, stilling them with an icy stare. "Su, you get on with her better than I do. I'm only going to send her running. Kouji, you watch Su's back. I don't want her alone should the Reikaku gang get to thinking she wasn't serious enough for them. You understand me?" Su nodded. It was Kouji who spoke up nervously, earning himself the first flicker of emotion that crossed Mari's face since they had kicked in the door to the pool hall.

"What about you?"

"What about me?" she asked, eyeing him cautiously.

"Who's got your back?"

"I'm going back to the _Genrou_. Don't need anyone at my back. The doors have locks." She chuckled quietly, turning away from him.

"Don't lie to me!" Kouji cursed her. He grabbed her arm, forcing her around to face him. "I ain't been with you long, but I know when someone is already checked out for the night!"

"Kouji. Stop." It was a warning. Low and serious. "There are things you don't know about. Don't go sticking your nose in them now. Not today."

"What the hell did you take me on for, huh? I ain't gonna sit here and watch you both go nuts over some shit that you started back before I met ya! Food, bed and protection, right? That's what you promised me. Who's going to give me that if you go get yourself killed?"

Mari's fist cracked against his cheek, hard and unexpected. He staggered back, knocking against a pedestrian, earning the trio a handful of harsh glances. "That was an order. Not a suggestion. You go with her, or you go. Period." She spat the order at him, low and barking. "Su, find Faye. Dig her out of whatever shit she got herself into, get her back on the _Bebop_ , and then get yourself back to the _Genrou_. Then you wait there until you hear word from me."

"Aye, Cap." The two women locked eyes for a too long moment, and with a short nod, Mari was off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the crowd like a shadow.

"Are we really letting her do this?" Kouji hissed, furious at his uselessness. Su snorted, a shadow of her former self returning to her face, eyes dark with her worry.

"Fuck no, we're not!" She barked, the words by a noise half laugh, half sob. "Damn woman's gonna get herself killed. We'll find Faye, then we'll find her. The faster we do the former, the sooner we do the latter. Now come on!" She took off in the opposite direction from her captain, boots thudding on the pavement as the pair went off in search of Faye.

* * *

 

Music: Bleeding Out – Imagine Dragons


	45. Broken Heroes: Beyond the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the ride.

True to her word, Mari returned to the _Genrou_.

She found what she needed on the net easily enough. It wasn't hard to find information on the Red Dragon. They had no one to be afraid of, and no reason to hide most of their business. She sat in the living room, Laika's head in her lap as her hand idly stroked the mutt's fur, humming softly under her breath as she laid her small store of ammo out before her, checking the sights on her pistols as she filled the magazines, tucking them neatly on her person, one by one.

_"Somewhere...beyond the sea. Somewhere...waiting for me."_

Spike was still the priority. The mission in the front of her mind, keeping her on track. Keeping her focused. The lone dragon spared from the assault she was planning.

_"My lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships..."_

She looked over her caster, noting the meager supply of shells she had remaining to her. The numbers didn't matter terribly. Whether it was a #9 or a #16, they all meant the same thing. A big explosion. She wasn't going for subtlety. She wanted them to know she was coming.

_"...that go sailing."_

"Come on, girl." She holstered her caster to her hip, slapping her thigh as Laika bounced happily around her feet, following her master to her room. Mari let her up on the coverlet, scratching her softly behind the ears as the dog settled obediently. Mari settled at her work table, pulling a small tin box from the back of a drawer, buried under dirt and tools. She blew the dust off, prying open the rusty hinges as she pulled out the small gold ring, watching it glimmer in the light. It slipped on her finger neatly, its weight comforting in its familiarity. "Stay, girl. You stay." Laika whined at Mari as turned to leave, closing the door securely behind her.

Her boots echoed off the walls as she strolled through the ship, turning off lights and closing doors. Buttoning up _Genrou_ as if she was preparing to go to simply go to bed, the ship going dark slowly. She let her feet carry her to the bridge, her fingers trailing lovingly along the console, playfully flicking the small hula doll into an excited shimmy. She fell heavily into the pilot's chair, eyes closing, listening to the soft hum as the ship's electronics idled. Memorizing the feeling of the ship under her. With a heavy sigh, she leaned forward, not even needing to open her eyes to switch the bridge dark.

_"We'll meet beyond the shore. We'll kiss just as before."_

She left her chair, worn from years and years of travel, punching in the code one last time as the door hissed open onto a magnificent red sunset. All she had to do was step outside and wait. Spike would come calling soon enough. The trap was laid for him. No one would expect her. She just had to follow him, and then she would take as many of Vicious' men as she could with her.

And that would be enough.

She let her feet take her from _Genrou_ quietly, a soft song drifting from her lips as the doors slipped closed behind her.

_"Happy we'll be beyond the sea. And never again I'll go sailing."_

* * *

It took them too long to get there.

The streets had been a blur in front of her eyes; she could just feel the pavement beneath her feet, the heat beating down on her as she raced through the streets, Kouji at her heels. Too many people knew too little. Each bodega clerk, each back-alley pimp, each street corner thug pointed to the next at best, shook their heads blankly at worst. Her fists had split open two smart-talking gangland punks in, her abused flesh aching, her throat clenching dry and her head spinning as she felt it come on, that cold unnameable fear. It was a clammy hand on the back of her neck; the rising scream in her chest, wringing her heart; the greek chorus in her head chanting that she was about to lose the most important person in her life.

Being away from the captain had brought on the worst of the foreboding. This was all a trap – sharp metal teeth set for that goddamn bounty hunter Spiegel, but surrounding them all, waiting for one wrong move, waiting for Spike to step on the trigger-plate. Waiting to snap shut and break them.

And Mari was running right toward the center, as fast as she could.

Finally she'd found someone that knew something; a small two-timing drug dealer working out of the opera house. He'd seen Faye. He'd heard something... but it would cost them. After Kouji dragged her rigid, screaming frame off of him, he'd spit the words out with his blood and teeth: the old cathedral clear out on the far edge of Tharsis.

The events of the day came crashing down on her, dry, heaving sobs already ripping from her throat as she bolted from the alley, Kouji struggling to keep up as she ran to the front of the opera house, shoving the valet back from a skimmer. She threw herself behind the wheel, tears clouding her vision as she gunned the vehicle forward into traffic to the angry blare of horns as Kouji flung himself over the passenger side door.

Hysteria replaced the blind rage, cold hands clawing at her ribs as she swerved through the Martian streets, wheezes pulling the air from her lungs as her lips chanted a litany of fear.

"We're not gonna make it, we're never gonna make it." Over and over.

She felt a body close to her, a hand brushing against her cheek, tucking her wild hair back, the simple gesture cutting through the panic that rampaged in her.

"Hey! Hey." Kouji's face was right beside hers, his cheekbone swelling from Mari's fist in her periphery. "We can do this. But you have to focus on driving now. You have to drive like you're always saying you can. _Dong ma_?"

" _Shoudao_." She whispered, letting out a shaky breath, fingers tightening on the steering wheel, foot pushing the accelerator to the floor of the skimmer, praying the sirens could wait until they were out of Tharsis proper.

They got to the cathedral just in time for their boots to be pounding the flagstone when Spiegel's body had shattered through the antiquated Rose window. The man contorted in a mockery of an angel, mid-descent to the depths of hell, arms reaching for the heaven he was cast from. Her heart fell with him. The trap was sprung. The sharp metal teeth glistened above them.

They were too late.

* * *

Vicious' appearance in the church had brought an immediate fury Mari welcomed, the first emotion to emerge from the novocaine numbness of panic that had enveloped her all day. Her hands twitched for her weapons, but Spike had made it clear – Vicious was his. She held back, the fury seething through her, seeking escape, turning her vision red, clenching in her muscles and curling just below the jagged scar on her sternum, a small burning ember of hatred calling for revenge.

And then the world exploded around her. Spike was running after Vicious; Valentine had fled once the thug that held her hostage fell. Mari's caster was in her right hand, automatic going crazy in her left, a valkyrie scream of triumph on her lips as the men fell before her, explosions lighting up the leaded saints that watched from the windows, columns raining around them all as bullets flew.

They fell before her, Vicious' men; the men she didn't know dying at a distance, the men that had long haunted her mind's eye pleading for their lives as she sent them off. Someone was roaring their approval as blood splattered hot and moist across her face, the last man in the nave eating her weapon. She remembered his icy eyes; eyes that had watched her fall that night so long ago, eyes that danced in her nightmares since. Her last #9 turned his brain into a fine paste, a coating of red plasma splashing over a window that depicted a man riddled with arrows.

A queer stillness came over the cathedral as his body crumpled to the ground. Her eyes traced over the dead that had fallen victim to her rage, recognizing faces with a deep, animal-like pride. Only one face wasn't accounted for; Spike had called the rights to his head. Zachary would be avenged.

The sound of breaking glass cut through her reverie. Her eyes flew to the chorus, sharp light flooding in as the Rose window shattered, Vicious rising to his feet from a low crouch, Spike nowhere to be seen as an explosion ripped through the cathedral, shaking the foundations with the force of the blast. Spike's dying gasp of an effort to take Vicious to hell with him.

"Vicious!" she barely recognized the voice that howled from her throat as the weapon in her hand rose, her finger pulling the trigger futilely on the already empty caster. The man dodged to the right, her body mirroring his, feet flying to the east transept as she cast the weapon away, seizing the final gun from her thigh holster, readying a bullet in the chamber. Even with the ringing in her ears, she could still hear the echoes of sounds around her. Screams sounded from outside, sirens blared in the distance. She could hear his feet raining down the steps above her head and then he was there, there in front of her, eyes wide as she brought her gun up, too late, too late, that thrice-damned bird in her face with its claws, and she could see his sword flying in _debana-waza_ through its pin feathers, and her finger squeezed frantically on the trigger even as his blade sliced through the skin and muscle of her front, metal cleaving almost perfectly through the jagged bullet-wound over her heart.

Her knees hit the floor as the quick sound of his shoes faded down the stairs, the white light of pain taking over her mind.

* * *

_She'd still been laying in her own hospital bed when they brought her his effects. His suit had been cast away, a bio-hazard in this sterile world. But his wedding ring was there; the well-kept wallet she'd bought him for his birthday when they still called each other "friend"; the glasses that now held only a single lens._

_And his service revolver, back in it's holster, empty of bullets. Had he done that, or had they?_

_Zach's ring went on her thumb. The wallet and glasses in her purse. The revolver under her pillow. Every night in the hospital, she would sit by the window, knees pulled up close, weapon pressed against her aching chest, fingers caressing the hammer, the trigger as she watched the moons progress, brain spinning idle webs of the future._

_It took her two weeks to get the bullets. One week to get out of the hospital; one week of begging co-workers to bring her the ammo. Afraid Red Dragon would come to finish the job, she said. They shook their heads, posted a guard outside her door. Only Spike had listened, eyes sad as he had nodded, returning two days later with a fistful of metal. She'd loaded the revolver in front of him, smiling tightly as she forced it back under her pillow, hands fidgeting in her lap once it was gone._

_That night she forced down every last painkiller she had been given at release, pulling out the well-oiled gun and forcing it between her teeth. She tried to pull the trigger. She sat there, stretching, straining for the courage, pleading with herself to finish it._

_In the end, a guard came in, summoned by sobbing she hadn't realized had been coming from her. He pulled the weapon from her hands as his partner called the ambulance, shoving his rough fingers down her throat, forcing the painkillers up onto the bedroom floor._

_And then she'd been in another bed, another room, another hospital. They'd made her talk about her 'feelings'. About Zachary. About that night. Over and over, until she was past screaming, past tears, past the point where the words bore any meaning to her. Only then did they release her, call her cured, call her sane. They couldn't know of the sleeping ember of rage in her heart, of the hibernating need for revenge that waited in the deepest reaches of her cortex._

_She knew it was there, and knew it would kill her if she stayed, if she kept walking these streets. She couldn't go to their apartment without seeing him making breakfast in their tiny kitchen, seeing him standing at the window with a drink in his hand; couldn't go to the market without reaching for a hand that wasn't there._

_So she fled, a pocket full of bills and a ridiculous plan the only thing between her and death._

Su had left Kouji by Spike's side, the man forcing the life back into the bounty hunter's prone body. But the sirens had been too close, her need too great - Kouji was trying to save Spike, and that was good enough. Her feet propelled her forward, hurtling through the front doors of the church in search of their captain. The church stank of stale incense and death as her eyes ran over each slack face laying on the stone floor, eyes searching desperately for a flash of blue. Her race through the nave left her spinning in place by the deconsecrated altar, eyes searching for anything, any clue that would help her find Mari.

There.

A low glow from the side of the chapel caught her eyes – the boss' caster. Empty but glowing; she'd been caught without ammo. Su forced down the gorge that rose in her throat, the contents of her stomach threatening to make a resurgence at the awful realization, body twitching as her eyes seized on a fresh trail of blood. Prayers to the long forgotten god of this house tickled her lips as she followed the gore to the vestry, charging through the open doors at the back of the room.

Suddenly, eerily, she was in a graveyard. There was no hint of the woman in this place of death; no telltale flash of blue, no laughing eyes, no sound of her boots on the peat of the ground. Su closed her eyes, pleading with every fate she knew of to give her back her friend, her captain, Mari.

And then – a thin, tired voice tripping over words in a weak parody of song.

"Somewhere... beyond... the sea. Somewhere...wait...ing... for... me."

She charged toward the voice, weaving between gravestones, and there she was, short blue hair playing in the breeze as she curled on the grass at the foot of a gravestone, blood pooling thick between the fingers of her right hand where it pressed to her torso, her left brushing just along the bottom of the cool, black granite of the tomb at her head. _Hermann_ , it read. _Zachary_. Mari's forehead pressed to the grass, eyes squeezing shut around tears as Su tripped forward on shaky legs, hands already reaching for her friend when she was seized her from behind.

In her mad flight, she hadn't heard the sirens stop, hadn't heard the voices. Hadn't realized the cops had arrived with their fists and clubs and guns. They grabbed her arms, grabbed her legs as she struggled and screamed, reaching for the woman on the ground mere inches in front of her.

"Mari! Lemme go, can't you see?! Can't you see she's hurt?! No, no! NO! Lemme go! Let me go!" But they didn't listen, fists and night sticks raining down upon her dangerous convict body as they struggled to keep her writhing, seizing form under control, five men forcing her into the hard metal cuffs as she screamed in anguish.

They dragged her away forcefully, her eyes locked to the woman on the ground, the woman oblivious to her arrest, oblivious as Su's voice screamed her name over and over. Eyes shut, pale lips still whispering out the words:

"Happy we'll be beyond the sea. And never again I'll go sailing."

* * *

 

Music: Sinnerman – Nina Simone; Beyond the Sea – Bobby Darin


	46. Broken Heroes: Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cages have many forms

The beeping echoed in her ears, loud and constant. Familiar in its uncaring existence. Marking her life in small, electronic noises. She remembered them. She reached for consciousness, trying to take in a gasp of air, and finding her airway obstructed by a hard, plastic tube disappearing into her mouth, doing her breathing for her. She winced around it as the pain hit her, reaching for her heart and finding her wrists restrained to the bedside.

Looks like they weren't taking chances with her this time around.

Her rising distress alerted the tubes and wires taped to her body, which in turn alerted the machines. The beeping increasing, dizzying her with the cacophony of electronic sound. A nurse hovered over her, white and sterile. Mari watched as she stuck a needle into the tube feeding into her arm, the medication burning her veins before it numbed her, sucking the pain and noise away in the familiar haze she remembered from so long ago. Her world grew heavy, slipped into darkness as the beeping and noises faded to nothingness.

* * *

It was dark when she opened her eyes again.

The tube in her throat was gone, but the restraints weren't. She could see the shadow of a guard outside her door, keeping a silent vigil in the hallway. The hurt was dim. Manageable. She could feel the cotton blanket of morphine wrapped around her brain, heavy and smothering. The beeping remained, returned to its even, soulless metronome.

"Morning." It was unexpected in the dark. She hadn't expected anyone to be there.

"Who...?" It was all she could rasp out, her throat dry and pained from the now absent tube and her tongue heavy from the drugs. A figure stood up, hovering in the corner of her vision, his blonde hair a halo in the glow of the monitors that noted her heart in little peaks and valleys.

"Hey, our Cap'n don't look so hot, do she, Kouji?" It was a whisper, strained and wavering. "Nah, can't say she does, Kouji."

"Kou...ji?" Mari looked up at him, disbelieving his existence. He was blonde, his face smooth. Unscarred. Smiling sadly down at her like a stranger. A golden angel come to take her away from this. "I...I can't...move...hand." She felt him pull the restraints, unfastening the buckle and letting it fall away. Lifting her weak hand into his and squeezing gently. She lifted it, raising it to his cheek, fingers searching for proof that this wasn't a drugged dream.

"Easy Cap, you'll ruin my make-up." He chuckled, pulling her hand away and depositing a small kiss on the knuckles before tucking it safely back into his hands.

"Su?" His face darkened, and he looked away from her. She could tell he was searching for the right words.

"She's off planet. They got her out at the graveyard. Took her off world to the prison station near Jupiter yesterday. There's talk about a trial, but she's got a big enough bounty on her head she's not gonna see the outside of a prison until she's nearly dead if she's lucky."

"Starwind." Mari choked, the effort of speaking exhausting.

"Starwind?" Kouji parroted, confused.

"Take... the _Genrou_. Find Starwind. He... will help." Kouji squeezed her hand.

" _Genrou's_ gone." She closed her eyes with a sad sigh as the words left his lips. "Impounded. Got Laika out, though. Left her with the _Bebop_ for the time bein'. They said they owed us one."

"Is Spike..?"

"He's fine. Barely made it, but he made it. They left the quadrant last week once he woke up."

"Book passage, then. You have money left?" Mari queried, fighting through the haze.

"Some. Should be enough."

"I'll get _Genrou_ back once they let me out." She leaned back in her pillows, letting her fingers trail to the bandages on her chest, feeling the staples and sutures beneath the sterile white cloth.

"Cap, they're not letting you out. You ain't guarded for your protection. They arrested you. Didn't matter that you were barely alive to notice." She laughed, weak and bitter, head falling away from him on the pillow.

"I'm really an outlaw now, huh?" She felt his fingers trail through her hair hesitantly, unsure of whether or not he should be offering her that comfort. She turned to face him, his hand falling still on her cheek, feeling the wetness gathered there. "Nothing for it, I s'pose. Sorry, Kouji."

"For what, _xiao mei mei_?" He blinked, swallowing heavily as he looked at her. She looked so small, so weak.

"Told you I'd take care of you. Look at the mess I made. You were right. Now I... I ruined everything." She dissolved into silent, drugged tears, unable to look at Kouji as her grief swallowed her. "I can't fix it this time. I broke it for good." He felt tears bite the back of his eyes, hot and angry as they ran down his cheek.

"Dammit, Mari." He ground behind clenched teeth, his head falling to her shoulder as he finally let out the breath he had been holding for close to a week, his fists balling in the sheets next to her as his shoulders shook. "Ya can't quit on me now." Her hand found his hair, stroking the now blonde strands gently until he was done.

"Not quitting, Kouji. But I know when I'm beat. The Red Dragon... they'll be screaming for blood. The Alliance... they'll probably keep me safe enough. You... you have to take care... of Su now. She... squirrels... her money. Should... have enough to get... _Genrou_ back." She sighed heavily, fatigue and the drugs trying to lay claim to her again. She fought a losing battle, her eyes fluttering closed and opening less and less each time.

"What about you?" He whispered, his head resting on the pillow beside her.

"What... 'bout me?" It was an echo of their fight earlier, and the recollection brought a chill to his spine. Her eyes fluttered closed a final time, her breath coming soft and even as she finally lost to the morphine, slipping back out of consciousness.

"It's time for us to take care of you, Captain." He whispered, depositing a small kiss on his forehead before securing her wrist back into the restraints and leaving the room, his face buried in a clipboard to hide his red eyes.

* * *

The news had eaten it up, broadcasting their faces across the 'verse on every vid screen from Mars to Persephone. Mari's face flashing, serene and proud in her Alliance dress uniform, a sharp contrast to Su's mug shot from seven years ago, fierce and scowling, her upturned middle digit blurred out for propriety's sake. Hazy surveillance videos played over and over on a loop as men and women in drab suits spun fabricated tales about the fallen Alliance soldier, driven mad when her husband fell in service. Driven into the arms of the Mars Underground. Unsure whether she was a sympathetic hero or if the rough-looking, blue haired monster had always lurked under the shining boots and neatly pressed wool. They tracked down her father, chasing him in and out of expensive cars with dark windows, the man angry and tired as he thrust his hand into the camera lenses, barking at them when he ignored him. An Alliance Captain reduced to a cowering animal as the media threw his outlaw daughter into his face. They found her teachers, her schoolmates, her old lovers, and eventually the thugs she used to keep the company of back in the day. Each burying her deeper and deeper. Depraved, they called her. Insatiable. Unstable. Power hungry.

Su had it even worse, her well recorded criminal history trotted out for the 'verse to view in full, save for the parts that were truly horrific. Anything that could earn her public sympathy was neatly trimmed away and stitched up into a story that painted her as a monster. They found the woman who now wore her tracker, the hag spinning tales out of the air as her pockets were neatly lined. They pinned Genrou's murder to her, along with the carnage the two women had left behind them on that day, the Reikaku gang's previous misdeeds forgotten, instead relegated to poor boys and girls who were hoodwinked into a bad life. Knighted and made angels post-mortem in the footage of grieving relatives, many of whom had washed their hands of their wayward kin long ago.

The two women were stripped bare and laid before the universe. A feast for the dogs.

* * *

Su sat in a new cell, with new guards, looking out the thick glass at a new stars. Four weeks in, she had no idea where she was beyond the fact that they had yanked her off of Mars as soon as they could clear the red tape, bouncing her from cell to cell until she was shuttled off so far into the 'verse that the folk here couldn't even remember what a planet looked like anymore. It was a station for the worst of the worst, left in the middle of nowhere to be forgotten about. To peck away at themselves slowly. Probably on the edge of a Reaver quadrant, if her transport guard's unease was any indication.

The first few weeks in captivity had been the worst. After the screaming, after the violence, she had found herself in solitary, a tiny room of dark and silence, her clothes ripped off of her, the thin slip draped over her still-bound body. They hadn't bothered removing the cuffs from her wrists or the shackles from her ankles – they would be moving her too soon to want to go through the grief of getting her in them again. Her body ached as she lowered herself to the floor, curling up as best she could against the chill of the room.

No light. No stars. No space. No Spike, No Gene, No Kaylee. No _Genrou_. No Kouji. No Cap'n.

No freedom.

The life she had been running from for years had reared its ugly head; the happy times she had found had disappeared. Now there was nothing. Only the Black. And the Cold. And what she could scrape together of her meagre, exhausted pride.

She rested her back against the hard wall, a cracked hum coming to her lips, turning to a rasping whisper from her throat.

_Take my love Take my land Take me where I cannot stand_

The authorities could take it all, but at least the Browncoat chorus reigned true in this isolated prison: they couldn't take the sky from her.

Not that the knowledge helped the hollow pain in her chest.

They had ignored her, for the most part. No questions in brightly lit rooms. No threats, whispered or otherwise. No jailhouse shake-ups. She wasn't even allowed near any of the other prisoners. They just left her alone, save for a small rotating guard of strange faces. She pleaded with them each time they came. Screaming and begging for scraps of news, her pleas falling on deaf ears. A newspaper, a rumor, anything. Anything to let her know Mari was alive. That she hadn't bled out on the cold ground that night on Tharsis. That Spike hadn't died like a broken angel on the concrete. That Kouji had made it to safety. The further from civilization she was dragged, the rougher they became. Her bellowed requests earning her bruises and bloody noses. She had finally stopped asking when a guard had backed her into a corner the previous week, knocking her down and delivering a volley of swift kicks to her stomach, leaving her gasping for air as she held her cracked ribs in trembling arms. After that, she had just quit, wrapping herself in a protective blanket of apathy and listlessness. An obedient little inmate, too placid to give the guards trouble and too broken to be an interesting plaything to any of the monsters imprisoned around her.

She didn't even look up at the noises outside her cell. She didn't care. They were either going to move her or feed her, and neither option mattered. She pulled her knees to her chest, burying her head in her arms to muffle their voices. She didn't want to hear what they had planned for her. She didn't care any more. She ignored the muffled thump outside her cell. Ignored the click of the lock, the squeal of the unused door as it was thrown open. Ignored the feel of the heavy chains falling away from her wrists and ankles.

Ignored the rough hand shaking her shoulder, calling her name.

"Su! Su, answer me." It wasn't until a pair of large hands grabbed her face, lifting her eyes to focus on his wild blue ones, that she saw Gene there in front of her, his face cracking into a huge smile as she blinked up at him.

"Starwind?"

* * *

Music: Better Go Home Now – The Dirty Three


	47. Broken Heroes: The Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JAILBREAK!

"That's my girl." He whispered, tossing a bundle at her and pressing a well-loved pistol into her hands. "Vacation's over. Time to get back to work." Su peeled back the bundled clothing with trembling fingers, a small smile crossing her face as she pulled out a familiar pair of worn, second-hand boots.

"Thought you might need those." Kouji's grin flashed at her from the door as he dragged the guard's body into the cell, stripping him of anything deemed useful. "Sorry it took so long to get here. Had to wait until the security let up some."

She didn't even realize she was crying until Gene tugged the boots from her hands, shoving them on her feet after ripping away her prison-issued slippers. "Don't go falling apart on me now, girl! You can lose it once we get back to the Star, ok?" She nodded at him, letting instinct guide her as the alarm began to sound, loud and urgent.

"So much for a quiet break." Kouji muttered. Su walked up to him, slamming the magazine into her pistol, a dark smile crossing her face.

"Good. I want these assholes to know I'm coming."

"No." Kouji's voice grew hard at her words. "You and the Cap'n done enough by the way of revenge."

"You don't know what they done to me."

" _Mei mei-_ "

"Aint got time for this, kids." Gene's voice cracked over them like a whip. "We gotta get outta here or we're all staying. Lets move."

The halls were curiously devoid of guards, only made more eerie by the obscenity-screaming, plate glass-banging convicts, their eyes wild as they watched the group hurry past. Men of towering stature, fists like hammers and faces only a mother could love. Tattoo collections preached of their victims: teardrops, flowers, crucifixes, skulls.

Why was she here? What did she do that merited such colossal banishment to a corner of the 'verse reserved for these creatures sent straight up from Hell?

Hallway after twisting hallway revealed itself as empty; eventually fishbowl-like cells making way for windowless steel, no signs at the featureless intersections Kouji led them through, the siren reverberating to ear-piercing levels in this space. Right, left, right, left, up two ladders, and down a couple flights of stairs- the small group tumbled deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine compound, Su's resolve weakening with each inconclusive turn in the horrid, clanging purgatory.

Questions and tired protests halted with the man before her – Kouji signaled a stop, pushing her tight to the wall at their backs, a grunt escaping her as her brusied ribs hit the steel.

"Now I know why we haven't seen them yet."

"What's up?" Gene hissed, eyes covering the hallway behind them.

"They've surrounded the ship."

"Fuck. We're humped." Su blurted, feeling the tears swell up her throat again.

"Not yet, jailbreak." Gene turned to Kouji, grin growing on his face. "I see you grab the caster pouch off the guards belt?"

* * *

The Well at the World's End Maximum Security Penitentiary was named long ago by some overly flowery bureaucrat - the men just called it The Well. The joke behind the name was forgotten to history; the intent was not. The prison was pushed deeper into space with every decade, making room for growing civilization, advancing ships. It was not a trip you made to visit misdemeanor relatives. If you were here, there was a reason - with the convicts, it was obvious. With the guards, less so.

The prison station was built like a horrible cancer, a central bulb housing the brain of operations, a docking station at the bottom of it; prison hallways grew from the furthest edges, translucent stems readied to purge their human contents at any sign of riot or upheaval. The twisting tendrils between housed a complex series of hallways riddled with dead ends and traps. The prison could kill you in any number of ways – if it didn't, they probably weren't done playing with you yet.

Rules were simple in the Well: do what you wanted with the prisoners, but keep them in line. If they broke, if they died, you had to have a reason. Truth didn't matter, it just had to sound plausible, just had to be in line with what the warden wanted. The best toys weren't broken quickly; Warden King liked to make them last.

Su was a fun toy, a distraction waiting for a rainy-day. Rather than purging her stem, the siren had summoned the guards to the brain, the warden snapping the men into formation in the loading dock, commands raining down on their blood-hungry faces. Objective: Kill the men. Take the girl alive. Heavy artillery, low strategy expected. They waited.

Starwind was the first to appear, body flying past the door in a flash of red and sapphire, caster firing a single flare into the dock before the tails of his trench coat were shot through by the trigger-happy guards. He disappeared again, a smug laugh echoing from the hallway beyond.

And then all hell broke loose.

A blinding flash of black light coupled with an ear-piercing squeal, smoke filling the docking bay as the men fired their weapons in panic, commands from Warden King lost in the mêlée.

In the hallway, Kouji let loose with an assault rifle at the flashes of men he saw through the heavy smoke, Su taking out the ones that fled from the docking bay. Gene swayed in the corner of her vision, panting, skin pale beneath his scars.

"You got this, Starwind?"

"I sure hope so." He grinned, lifting a comm to his mouth. "Gilliam, think you can help us out here? We sure could use a few of your little buddies..."

The dock rang with bellows from the Warden as the Star powered on, uniformed men spinning to converge on the ship at their backs.

"How did they get on the ship you useless qui-" the man's curse was cut off; a series of high-pitched screams rang against the steel, clashing with the cacophony of whirring machinery.

"Now." Kouji hissed.

The three outlaws flew around the corner, bolting toward the glowing ship at the back of the room, eyes numb to the gore and chaos that surrounded them. Gilliam's repair bots had let loose on the room with fire and saws, men shooting futilely at the metal beings as the ships arms seized the guards that held their ground, smashing them violently to the ground. Su and Kouji fired haphazardly into the mess, keeping the pressure off as they ran for their lives.

"GO!" Su screamed, shoving Gene forward after Kouji as she dodged under one of Gilliam's arms, feet carrying her after the fleeing Warden, her finger twitchy on the trigger. The man glanced behind him at the sound of pounding boots, his face cruel with scorn for the woman at his back. She tasted blood.

Su's bullet flew wide as her feet slipped out from under her, a tiny bot flying past her head and back into battle, one of the ship's arms deftly plucking her from the ground and dumping her at Kouji's feet as the Warden made his getaway.

"I said no!" growled the man, dragging her to her feet roughly. "It's your fucking turn to listen to me." He shoved her back at Gene. "Keep an eye to your crewmates."

"Gilliam, bridge down." Gene rasped, leaning heavily on the woman as the bridge crashed to the steel floor at their feet. The trio limped up the gangplank as it ascended, a booming explosion shaking the ship as a sudden whirlwind of air and debris whipped around the loading dock, the Star already moving out into space.

Su kept an arm around Gene as she limped them over to the nearest window, watching as guards and weapons flew out into the black emptiness through the gaping hole in the side of the dock. Some of the craftier guards already in the safe area of the brain, eyes wide as they watched the carnage of their brothers in the vacuum of space.

"C'mon, girl. I need to lay down, that #18 took a lot outta me." the red-head rasped in her ear. "Kouji, you good to pilot for now?"

Kouji nodded, looking at the worn out pair before him. "Get some rest. I'll take first shift. Su, you're up next."

* * *

She woke unknown hours later, suffocating in the the dark of the room, immediately fighting against the unknown arms that restrained her in the pitch black.

"Easy girl, easy." came the voice, familiar hands moving to smooth the hair away from her face. "I gotcha. It's just me. You're safe."

Her breath came shuddering then, the tears finally falling as he turned her in his arms, pulling her weeping form against his chest. She cried herself out, the tears she had locked up in her heart coming easy in the dark, his hand stroking her back, lips murmuring half-asleep assurances against her temple.

She was free again, but to what life? On the run, no ship, no captain. The closest thing she had to a family had disappeared in the wind. She had her revenge, but at what cost?

Wiping her eyes on the lapels of his jacket, she sniffled to a watery stop.

"Thanks, Starwind." A soft snore was her only response. With a weak chuckle, she pulled herself from the bed, shuffling through the open door toward the light of the bridge.

Kouji stood at the front atmoscreen, eyes staring blind into the seemingly endless void, arms crossed tight before him.

"When did you go blonde?" Kouji spun, startled by the sound of her voice. His mouth pinched, eyebrows creased as he took her in.

"Three weeks back. Had to – they were looking for a blue-haired accomplice." He searched her face. "Why haven't you asked about the Cap'n yet?"

Su reacted to the words physically, shoulders hunching as if around an invisible blow to her body.

"I didn't want to hear about her bleeding out on Zach's grave while the pigs watched." She spat, eyes fiery. "Didn't want to think about how there wasn't a damn thing I could do for the one person who's done everything to protect me. Is that what you wanted to hear, Kouji? We rampaged through Mars for revenge, and it destroyed her in return; made you and I personae non gratae for the entirety of the 'verse. I fucked up. I know. I ruined all our lives by dragging us through my past. Is this what you want to hear?!"

"She's not dead, you know." his quiet statement hit her harder than the first, her hands groping blindly for support as her body went numb.

"What?"

"Yeah. They made sure to stitch her up good - wanted to keep their finest outlaw available for show." Kouji's handsome face twisted in a sneer. "Gorram Alliance has you both painted as the worst criminal team since - well, hell, I don't even know. Red Dragon turned you into the 'verses number one most wanted; Alliance was more than happy to scoop up that particular favor and brag about it."

The girl's eyes drifted out the window, mind whirring with the story he had just laid bare, turning the facets and facts before her.

"We have to rescue her." She finally stated, plainly. "She hasn't been in the pit before; she won't last. She couldn't do solitary. It would kill 'er. All that time to think about..." She grimaced, finishing, "one's losses."

"That's the plan, _mei mei_." Kouji sighed, looping an arm around her shoulder as he slumped against the cockpit beside her. "But it's not we. It's Gene and I. You we're dropping on Earth with Jim 'til we get the all clear." He held up a hand as the girl flared with self-righteous anger. "Sorry, it's non-negotiable. You go back there, you'll make more of a damn mess than I care to clean up. We'll get her, don't you worry." He sighed again as he stood, far off look coming to his eyes once more. "We just have to come up with a plan, first."

She nodded. "You go think. Sleep, if you can. I'll take second watch."

"No sub-ethers or cowboying?" Kouji grinned.

"Nah. Too tired." She returned his smile as he dropped a kiss to her forehead, heading toward the quarters at the back of the ship.

Slipping into the cockpit, she rested her head against the seat behind her.

"Gilliam?"

"Yes, Su?"

"You got the flying okay for now?"

"Yes, Su."

"Great." she closed her eyes for a moment, hesitating before her next requests. "Can you pull up everything in the news regarding Su Kou and Mari Hermann from the past month?"

"Vids and articles?"

"Yes, please."

"Queuing up now..."

* * *

Music: Radioactive – Imagine Dragons


	48. Broken Heroes: There and Back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man, the news is so depressing!

Mari walked from the foreboding brick building, feet carefully taking her through the small grassy area, thick book in hand. The downward tilt of her head belied the curious eyes darting this way and that, taking in her peers and their odd games. She navigated through the knots and cliques, finding a quiet spot at the base of a tree, opening her book on her lap, fingers quickly tracing the words where she had left off.

Alas and alack, her reverie didn't last long, interrupted by a dull thud and whimper from the bushes to her right. Drawing her attention away from the trite literature the institution had provided her, the noise served to lure her into the dark mystery beyond the leaves.

She had always been drawn to danger, to being the hero. She pushed her way through the branches and brambles, the sounds repeating themselves over. Words became distinct as she approached, breaking into a small, dark clearing in time to see a little girl hit the hard packed dirt at the feet of two older boys.

It was the first time she ever laid eyes on Su. Wasn't much to look at, at the time – ill-fitting uniform, messy ponytail, hungry. But something about her determined face and rigid body had made Mari's heart go out to the girl, a sentiment only compounded by the cruel words the boys threw at her.

"Stay down, charity case." one of the boys sneered. "We're just gonna hit you harder if you get up."

Still, the girl rose to her feet, eyes resolute as she balled two fists before her bruised face. She sniffed, trying to restrain her bleeding nose. "Just because you're bigger don't mean you're better, prep school."

"Ha! Looks like the ghetto mutt is ready to fight you, McGinnis!" the other boy cracked, elbowing his friend. "Make her eat dirt."

"Dobson! McGinnis!" Mari called out, charging forward in her sudden bravery, glaring at the boys as they turned to face her. "You leave that girl alone. She's half your age, you fools! What use is there bullying her?"

The boys frowned at each other before Dobson turned, rolling his eyes at the girl before them. "Stay out of this, Mari. Just cause you're the captain's daughter–"

"Means I know how to fight a battle better than either of you!" She sniffed, walking to stand between them and the young girl. "Means that when I talk, folk listen."

Dobson scowled, mulling her words over and finding them true. Bumping McGinnis with his shoulder he said, "Lets go. That street rat isn't worth getting the Princess' Daddy upset."

Mari bristled at the nickname. No matter how good her grades were, how many physical and mental exams she excelled at, her form mates still threw the awful nickname in her face. The Princess.

As the boys left the clearing, voices joining the laughing screams of their peers, a small growl sounded at her back. "Why didn't you bash him in the nose?" Mari turned, shrugging at the girl behind her, watching as she pressed a sleeve to her own nose.

"Wasn't worth it. Gotta think tactically." She shrugged again, pulling a pressed handkerchief from her pocket. "Here, let me do that."

"I can pop him for ya, if ya want." the little girl said in a nasally voice as Mari pinched her nose shut to stop the bleeding. "I'll get 'im good."

"Like you were getting him good just now?"

"There was two of them. Un-sportsmanlike, I think." The girl twisted her lips in something like a smile. "Thank you. Fer helpin'. I'm Su."

"I'm Mari. And of course. It wasn't fair of them to gang up on you."

Long after Su's nose had stopped bleeding, Mari's book forgotten in the grass, they sat talking in the secluded clearing. Two little outcasts, hiding from the world.

* * *

Over three hours after Gilliam had first brought up the vids, Su stretched her arms above her head, twisting this way and that, a series of satisfying pops echoing up her back.

"Gilliam, I have an idea."

"Oh, goody."

"Was that sarcasm, Gill?"

"Please, call me Gilliam."

"Right. Gilliam, do you have the ability to perhaps... encourage sleep in some of the crew members aboard the ship?"

"I think that could be possible. Do you wish to sleep?"

"No, no, thank you. Feel free dope Kouji and Gene to the gills, though. And then fire up the sub-ethers for the Sol System." She grinned, reclining in the captain's chair, cozying up to her new found plan. "And see if you can't get the _Bebop_ and the _Serenity_ on the comm, will ya?"

"I shall do my best."

"You're a prize, Gilliam."

"Thank you, I know."

Mari had saved her ass enough for three lifetimes. It was time she paid her back.

* * *

The gang was all there, settled at the table, perched on counter-tops, leaning against walls. The combined crews of four ships had crammed into the _Serenity's_ tiny mess, each spacer nervously eyeing the next with one eye, doubtfully peering at Su at the other.

"So, that's the plan. Sound good, Mal? Jet?" She glanced to two of the key players in her little con, before her eyes drifted around the nervous faces in the room. "Okay, c'mon. You all owe Mari this. You all owe her something. She's laughed and cried with y'all, broke bread with you, fought alongside you, helped you up when you were down. Without her, the 'verse'll be a much less interesting space." She took in each face, one by one, praying her point would sink in. "'Sides, if none of you come round, who's gonna grow the food? And one crew's gonna have to take me on. Do any of you really want that?"

"She's right." To her surprise, it was Jet who spoke up first, eyes glued to his feet as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of him. "Girl never would've gotten herself into this mess if not for me. She told me she couldn't do the job. I pushed her into it. I didn't know about...well, things were different then." The room shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Mari's recently aired dirty laundry. Her laughing face forever changed by their newfound knowledge. The ghost of a pistol resting between those smiling lips. A spectre hovering over her left shoulder, holding her hand in his.

"The _Bebop_ is on board." Spike nodded, casting a sharp glance at Faye when the woman made a noise of protest. "All of us."

"You know you got the _Star_ behind ya. And I have a few outstanding favors I can call in." Gene's hand fell to her shoulder, squeezing it gently. Su cast her gaze to _Serenity's_ crew, eyes nervous as they stood assembled there, casting wary glances at each other. Mal had been contemplating his boots angrily since she had boarded, keeping his own counsel in the corner. Kaylee broke from the pack, winding her hands around Su's arm.

"Su's got the right of it. _Genrou's_ always been there for us. So has Miss Mari."

"Kaylee," Mal's voice broke from him finally, low and warning, "I believe the lady prefers to be called 'captain', if I'm not mistaken?" Kaylee face broke into a smile at her captain's words.

"Seems like this is our fight, Captain." Zoe took Wash's hand in her own, squeezing it tightly and imagining a world where he wasn't there beside her, and how far she would go to punish the ones that would dare take him from her side. "No one deserves what that woman's been put through." Wash kissed her softly, his decision made the moment Zoe had made hers.

"Doc, I'm not expecting you and yours. This is too risky. You both stay behind, stitch up them who need stitchin'." Simon nodded quietly, caught somewhere between shame and relief. River only tilted her head, indifferent to the entire situation. Watching quietly and saying nothing. "Same goes to you, Shepherd. Ain't going to force you to go breaking any of those vows you went and took on account of someone you barely know."

"Seems to me you could use all the hands you can get." Book paused, thoughtful. His face taking on the hint of darkness that emerged from time to time. "Besides, someone has to bless those that fall at our feet." There was no mirth in his eyes as he spoke, just a profound sadness.

"Well, Miss Su, looks like _Serenity_ is at your back." Mal nodded in her direction, chuckling softly as Kaylee's arms wound around Su's neck, pulling the girl into an exuberant hug.

"Speak for yourselves." Jayne barked loudly, hands slapping on the table as he leaned forward, staring Su in the eyes as he growled at her. "I ain't doing nothin' until this one here pays up what she owes me." Everyone blinked at the man, holding their breath. "I want my gorram hat back!" His face split into a lopsided grin at her expression, and Su threw her head back, letting the tension break as she laughed into the silent mess.

"You got it, Cobb."

* * *

No one could agree on exactly what had happened that day.

The news argued over it for weeks, speculating and debating points in heated arguments as experts flashed across the screen, giving their nasally opinions as they pushed their glasses higher up on their noses. Diagrams and interviews played endlessly, analyzing the pieces in the great machine that was that afternoon until no one wanted to hear it anymore.

One source vehemently carried the story that the Judge had somehow been involved. He hadn't shown that day until well after the proceedings were scheduled to have begun, found asleep in the arms of a Companion, apparently, and late enough that the chaos had already settled. They rolled and re-rolled the footage of him, gaping at the aftermath of the ruined court-house as he shrugged his robes on.

Another followed the strange disappearance of the _Genrou_ from the evidence hangar, the ship digitally misfiled and sold in a police auction after its electronic VIN had been wiped and re-coded. Snapped up by a keen-eyed couple in the market for rare collectibles. The violet haired vixen had apparently whined and pleaded with her beleaguered man until he had acquiesced to her pleading, snapping up the ship for a modest bundle. It was already long off world before anyone had noticed the slip up, the couple unavailable for comment. Most of the reports had come second-hand from jealous collectors, angered that they didn't see the ship for what it was until it was too late.

Yet another covered the strange, supposedly unrelated gate crash in Mars orbit, caused when a off-course Ctarl-Ctarl vessel, nearly unheard of in Sol space, demanded right of way from a local grappler ship, the two engaging in a battle that damaged the outgoing warp gate enough to cripple space traffic for the next week and a half, both making their way out of Sol space before the gate went down. They couldn't find any connection with the courthouse, but it didn't stop the conspiracy theorists from trying.

What happened inside the courthouse was left to speculation, the old Earth tradition of no cameras in the courtroom holding up on Mars as well. The reports were all contradictory. Some had claimed that a group of angry protesters had kicked down the door, opening fire and scattering the occupants. Yet another group reported that the chaos had come from within, the occupants fighting each other to get out before the roof had come crashing down. No one could agree on anything other than the fact that Mari had last been seen sitting quietly, making no effort to move. Chained and forgotten in the chaos.

There were even more rumors, though ones less inclined to be believed, on the less noteworthy networks. Rumors of the beautiful assassin known only as Twilight Suzuka being sent after the outlaw by the Red Dragon. That the firefight that had broken out in the courthouse had been incited by a couple of Browncoats seeking revenge against the Alliance. That the hacker Radical Edward had thrown his lot in with the outlaw, hacking into all the camera frequencies and replacing the feed with the words, 'Genrou Lives' in messy digital scrawl. A joke on the story hungry media. A red herring to keep them snapping at shadows.

There were just too many pieces to connect. Too many little things for them to piece it together. Not that it changed the only fact that really mattered.

The outlaw Mari Hermann, ex-Alliance officer and Captain of the outlaw vessel _Genrou_ , was dead.

* * *

Music: Born to Die – Lana del Rey


	49. Broken Heroes: My Blue Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ain't no one like family.

Mari opened her eyes, not quite sure what she would see once they focused in the low light. She shook the cobwebs from her brain, trying to remember what had happened. She remembered sitting in the courthouse, hot and uncomfortable. The weight of her restraints chafing at her wrists and ankles. The Judge had been late, the lawyers talking uncomfortably among themselves. The court had grown restless, a dull murmuring rising as there was no one to call order. And then the gunfire had begun. She winced as she remembered the blow to the back of her head. Remembered falling forward heavily onto the table, bound hands unable to break her fall. Remembered being bundled up in slim arms and colorful silk before everything went dark.

"Mari?" A hand ran a cool cloth over her forehead in the darkness, the voice wavering as it called her name. Hesitant and familiar.

"Su? Oh god, I'm dead, aren't I?" She groaned, certainly feeling the part as a hand pressed a tender spot by her eyebrow. The answering laugh was watery, and Mari looked up to see her first mate hovering over her. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words just wouldn't come.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!" Su's voice ripped raw from her throat as she threw herself on her friend, clinging to the woman as she sobbed into her neck. "I thought you were dead, you stupid bitch!" Mari's hand found the back of her head, stroking Su's long hair as she soothed the woman. Letting her cry out the worst of her fear into her borrowed shirt.

"I'm sorry." It was all Mari could manage, whispering it over and over like a prayer in Su's dark hair. "I am so very, very sorry." Su sniffed heavily, sitting up to look her friend in the eyes, hands resting on her shoulders. Clinging to her captain as if she was afraid the woman would vanish if she let go.

"Room for one more?" A knock sounded in the doorway, Kouji ducking his head as he slipped into the small room. Mari finally looked around her, recognizing _Serenity's_ small med bay. "Hey, Cap." He smiled at her, scooping her hand up in his as he sat opposite Su.

"Hey yourself." Mari smiled weakly, squeezing his hand. "Do I even want to ask?"

"Probably not, Boss." Kouji smirked quietly.

"Yeah, pretty sure we ran clean down your 'do not' list and made up a few new ones along the way." Mari smiled as laughter broke through Su's tears, happy to see the woman smiling.

"What now? And for Christ's sake, will you let me sit up?" Mari shifted uncomfortably. She had spent weeks on her back, and it was the last place she wanted to be now. Kouji's hand supported her as Su clicked the bed up into a sitting position, steadying her as the movement made her head spin.

"Now we wait." Su huffed, sitting back and crossing her arms in front of her. "Jet and Faye are en-route to drop off _Genrou_ in Blue Heaven with Swanso. He's going to give the ol' boy and overhaul, change the profile enough that he don't get tagged right on sight. Ed's already re-hacked the VIN, so a scan shouldn't turn anything up either. Gonna have to refit the inside, but we got time for that."

" _Genrou_? You got him back?" Mari couldn't help the grin that split her sore face. So what if everything inside the rust bucket was gone? She could regrow the plants. Redecorate the empty metal spaces until they felt full again. As long as she had a ship to call home, and a crew to fill it, all would be right in the 'verse.

"We're going to owe the _Bebop_ a pretty penny, though." Kouji scowled. "That ship wasn't cheap." Mari snorted, sitting back against a pillow as the laughter overtook her. Su and Kouji just blinked at her, eyes flickering between the hysterical captain and each other.

"You aren't the only one who squirrels away money, _mei mei_. I have almost a million stashed away in _Genrou's_ nav consoles."

"You... you what?" Su sputtered.

"What do you think I was always doing up in there? If _Genrou_ needed that much maintenance, he wouldn't have even been able to lift off, let alone be space worthy." She narrowed her eyes at her. "Besides, why would I be up in there when I could have just let you do it?"

"I thought... oh, you evil..." She dissolved into laughter with her captain, tears streaming down her cheeks as she grabbed at her sides, trying to ease the ache in her ribs as both of the women lost it. Kouji just watched the two silently, face placid as he waited for them to calm.

"And what happens next?" he asked, once the moment had passed, gaze falling to his lap. "Once you have your ship back? Do I just wait around until the next time you want to throw it all away?" Both Mari and Su blinked up at him, unsure of what to say. "Because I can't do that again. I'm not going to sit around and wait for you two to snap a second time – it damn near killed me this time!" Mari's hand found his, pulling him to her as her arms encircled his shoulders, her head burying itself in his neck.

"No more, Kouji. I promise. I left that woman there on Tharsis, buried with the rest of my past." she whispered, her words for him alone. "I'm done running from it, and I'm done fighting it. I just want to live now." She felt Su's arms enfold them both, the three sitting in an awkward huddle in the dim light of the med bay. "We just want to be free." She whispered, feeling his arms tighten around them both. A small, broken family in the vastness of space. She pulled away, looking at both Su and Kouji in turn. "I can promise you a bed. The food will come soon as I can grow it. And we all take care of each other. No one goes alone. No one gets left behind. It's not much, but it's the best I can do."

"I'll take it." Kouji smiled.

"Me too." Su echoed. "Someone's going to have to teach you to be a proper outlaw now. You were never much good at it."

* * *

"Well, you've certainly looked better." Simon muttered, looking over the stitches on Mari's eyebrow holding the bruised flesh closed. "They could have been a bit more careful with you." His voice took on a distant tone as he talked more to her eyebrow than her, caught up in his work.

"I've had worse." She smiled weakly, sitting impatiently on the chair, eager to finally get out of the med bay.

Simon had insisted she stay for the past few days, just so he could keep an eye on her. Not that she could escape to anywhere, with the constant parade of people coming and going. Su and Kouji took a large amount of persuasion, only leaving after they were all but carried out once their captain came around. After that, _Serenity's_ curious crew couldn't help but poke their heads in time to time. 'Just to check', they had said. Inara had just left her moments ago, the two women talking of days past over tea when Simon had shooed her out so he could give Mari the all clear, and she was eager to return to her company.

"Could you unbutton your shirt? I want to check your progress, make sure it's closing neatly." She obediently listened, opening the buttons on the too big shirt Book had kindly lent her, revealing an angry red gash down her chest, punctuated by the little red dots left behind from the staples and sutures. It still chilled him to look at it, doctor or no.

"It's not as bad as it looks." she tried to joke with him. To lighten the mood some. "Honest, doc." He tried to smile at her, his stretched lips more of a grimace than anything as he looked up at her.

"You always had a way of understating things." He finally chuckled at her, eyes never leaving his work. "My father said the same thing about your father."

"Did your father ever tell you our folks wanted to match us up?" She looked down at him when she felt his fingers still. She caught the tell-tale traces of a real smile touch his face.

"Once. I think it was mother's idea." He chuckled, looking up at her with a sideways glance.

"Well, what can I say. You're just too wild for me, doc!" She shrugged, batting his hand away from her. "Simon, it's a scar, and its fine. I have the best doctor in the 'verse tending to me. Now for the love of all that's holy can I please leave this gorram med bay?" She shooed him away, watching as he degloved, sighing at her impatience.

"Any problems at all..."

"I'll call you." She flopped back onto the chair, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Fine. Get dressed. I think dinner is almost ready, anyhow." A knock on the door caught their attention, and they both watched as Mal let himself in, ducking through the doors.

"Am I interrupting?" He asked, averting his gaze as Mari buttoned her shirt back up.

"No. We're finishing up now." Simon tucked his tools away neatly, securing them in the overhead cabinet.

"Mind if I have a word with your patient, Doc?"

"That's up to her." Simon gave Mari's a knee a small pat before leaving the two captains alone, following the smells of dinner.

"I was wondering when I would see you." Mari finished closing her last button with a flourish, kicking off the table that had served as her bed for the last three days and standing to meet him. He had been absent the past three days. Not conspicuously so, but she had noticed.

"I was around to be seen. You were just too busy sleeping to notice." He looked at her a long moment before his hand lifted to her shirt, lowering the collar enough to see the top of the scar again, his lips twisting into a strange expression.

"Mal, it's nothing." She yanked her collar back up, suddenly self-conscious.

"You got a mighty strange definition of nothing." The look on his face took the wind out of her, enough so that she had to look away.

"Yeah, well..." She wasn't expecting the arm that reached out, crushing her to his chest as he folded her into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head. She stood there a moment, letting her eyes fall closed as she felt his chest rise and fall against her cheek, grateful that she was alive to feel it. To stand there in that moment. Her arms lifted to rest on the small of his back, returning his embrace as she accepted his relief. "I owe you and yours, Mal. More than you could know. Especially after what you know about me."

"You don't owe us nothin'. I don't care who you used to be." She could feel his words stir the hair on her head as he spoke, his lips pausing as he spoke to press against her forehead. "Color of your coat don't matter now." She smiled into his shirt, placing her palms on his chest and gently extracting herself from his arms.

"Come on." She smiled up at him. "I'm starving, and I hear a rumor soups on."

"That's what they tell me." He murmured, offering her an elbow she gratefully accepted, leaning gently on him as he led her from the med bay.

* * *

The trip to Blue Heaven had seemed almost short. The days aboard _Serenity_ calm and pleasant.

Su had disappeared into the engine room with Kaylee as soon as she was certain Mari wasn't going to keel over unexpectedly on her, the two mechanics buried up to their armpits in wires and grease before anyone could blink. Their singing and laughter was good for morale, the happy noises drifting from the engines and infusing light into the dark corners that had settled while Mari had been sleeping. The visiting captain even found occasion to visit with them, dusting off some of her old prep-school know-how to lend a hand, and scratching little notes and diagrams for Kaylee should the girl ever have a mind to start her own on-board strawberry patch.

Kouji surprised absolutely no one by striking up an easy friendship with Jayne. It was his quiet relationship with River that raised their collective eyebrows. He had infinite patience for the girl, difficult as she could be. Something about his sister, he had said. Mari and Su could believe him, after all the nights they had accidentally woken him, drawing him from his bed as he soothed their nightmares away when they couldn't bear to do it for each other. He was often found being towed about the ship by her, his hand in hers as she dragged him off somewhere, spouting some colorful array of jargon at him.

Mari, surprisingly, found herself passing a large part of her days with the Shepherd. She took an odd comfort in his presence, something that she couldn't quite place. Something deep in the back of his eyes, behind the Bible and the sun soaked stories and the gentle smile. Something they'd always share, but never speak about.

The evenings were full of laughter, the piecemeal crew and their wayward guests gathering around the well-loved table over their food. Trading stories and jokes until they were laughing too hard to eat. Some of the nights found them singing and dancing in the hold, banging on anything they could find to create a beat, the cacophony of hands and feet and voices melding into something joyous as Mari and Inara taught the crew the steps to the dances of society. Other ones found them laying sleepily in the lounge, passing a flask between themselves as they listened to the sounds of space enfolding the ship. Mari even spent a long night awake on the bridge, murmuring in hushed tones with Wash and Zoe about things the only the three of them would ever understand. Whispers of white dresses, the sound of small feet, of rocking chairs swaying on front porches.

But most night were spent alone, the three shipless outlaws staring at their respective ceilings in borrowed beds, some occupied, some not, counting the minutes until they could feel _Genrou_ under their feet again. Finally drifting to sleep imaging the hum of their lost home, lips curled into a smile as they felt it growing closer.

And on those nights, the voyage took forever.

* * *

Music: One serious: Shake it Out – Florence and the Machine; and one old-timey: My Blue Heaven – Gene Austin


	50. Broken Heroes: Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no place like home!

Mari scanned the docking station of Blue Heaven, eyes searching for the _Genrou_. She easily spotted the audaciously painted _Star_ , and caught a glimpse of the tail-end of the _Bebop_ , but no pockmarked hull with flaking rust. Mal's hand on her shoulder cut through her thoughts.

"He ain't here, Cap'n. We couldn't make it that easy for them, could we?" He grinned, looping her under his arm. "C'mon, we got a bar to get to."

The firefly contingent ushered the _Genrou's_ crew into the outlaw satellite proper, curious stares dancing over them, whispers and glares flitting over the women at the center of the little group. Mari's heart sank – she might be free, but she wasn't clear of her bounty. The looks would keep coming. Her blue hair, her tattoos, the piercings. They marked her as the woman that took out a fleet of Red Dragon's best men. The challenges, the fights, the attempts on her life would fly fast now; she was finally an outlaw, and a marked one at that. She tensed under Mal's arm, the realization entirely unwelcome for the private woman.

"Jayne, Zoe." Mal pulled her closer, nodding to his first mate. Zoe's gun was in her hand in an instant, swinging casually at her side as Jayne swung Vera 'round to his front, fingers stroking the trigger idly. The tension on the promenade quivered within a hair's breadth of snapping, hands shifting to steel, eyes narrowing for a fight.

" _Wuh duh ma huh tah duh fong kwong duh wai shung!_ – You kids are not popular." Wash ran a hand over his forehead as the group ducked into a dark bar in a far corner of the station. Heading toward the back, Mal nodded to the bartender, sweeping open the doors to a private room. The crews of the _Star_ and the _Bebop_ were kicked back at the table, eyes collectively turning toward the door as the group entered the room. Spike raised his glass to Mari in a mocking toast, winking as they approached the table.

"Back among the living, I see."

"I could say the same for you, Spiegel." Mari settled into the seat next to the reclining man, body finally relaxing in the relative safety of the room. Glasses were passed around, folks filling them with the warm, rich liquor that Jet had so kindly sprung for. When everyone's glass was full, Mari cleared her throat, drawing the attention of her friends as she raised a glass.

"Thank you. Thank you all so very much. There are no words for how grateful my crew and I are for what you've done. No words for the selfless kindnesses, for the courage, for the unquestioning loyalty." She paused, eyes tracing the faces gathered, landing on those of Su and Kouji at her side. "We're forever indebted. There's not much we can offer, but... you'll always be welcome at our dinner table. We'll always be there to help out on a mission... or a heist. And I can promise there will always be room for you on our ship."

" _Wan shou wu jiang_!" the crowd returned, glasses clinking merrily as laughter and congratulations rang through the room. Aspects of the battle were pieced together for Mari, Su taking a smug bow for her fine con, much back-slapping given for reenactments of the finer points.

Mari was savouring her drink, watching the mingling crowd when Gene dropped heavily into the seat beside her. "Sick of Su trying to show you the fancy dance steps I taught her?"

"What can I say? You can't teach a street rat new tricks. Those boots were crushing my feet." the boy grinned at Mari. "Say, Cap'n. You wanna see your ship?"

* * *

The ship in Swanzo's dock bore only the most cursory resemblance to the _Genrou_ \- the core lines of the body shone through, but this model was a polished antique, not the rust bucket the woman had been piloting for years. But even if he was dressed up with a new paint job, suited in bigger sub ethers and accessorized with a pair of grappling arms, Mari would recognize her ship anywhere.

"That's my boy." came the murmur as she ran a hand over the glossy blue of the hull, fingers caressing the ship's side as she keyed in the pass code with the other. The authorities had stripped the inside bare; the well-loved furniture, the piles of literature, Su's rescued vinyl collection, her well-planned hydro system... it was all gone, sold or trashed, the Alliance feasting on their loss.

So it went.

She walked from room to room, mind wandering as she surveyed the bare walls, the polished floors. Swanzo had put the ship through a complete overhaul, asking a pittance for the work he normally asked an arm and a leg for.

"We're all running from something here." His hands making vague gestures in the air. "Ladies like you, you can't stay in one place. Your friends make a good case for you. Everyone deserves a fresh start."

The sound of boots clattering into the ship stirred her from her reverie. "In here!" Kouji and Su's heads rounded the corner moments later, faces hang-dog at the sight of the empty living room.

"Looks like they took the lot of it, _jie jie_." Su murmured, face sad. "At least Swanzo made the old boy spiffy."

Mari threw an arm over the girl, face dancing with a small smile.

"Hey, we got three bunks, a set of sub-ethers and landing gear. What more have we ever needed?" Looping Kouji under her other arm, she let her smile broaden, lighting up her face. "I think it's perfect."

"Perfect for what, _mei mei_?"

"Our fresh start."

The three outlaws stood in the empty room, eyes tracing their new surroundings, hearts letting their pasts fall to the wayside. A second chance. A new start. They would strap into the cockpit, eyes on the sky as they soared through the atmo and out into the 'verse, sweet cries of joy on their lips and triumph in their hearts.

They were free.

* * *

Music: This is Why We Fight – The Decemberists; The Adventure – Angels and Airwaves


	51. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genrou Lives

"Look, it's quite simple." The woman rolled her eyes, tossing a long sheet of icy blonde hair over her shoulder. "This is a family operation. My brother, my sister, and me. We have neither the room, nor the inclination, to take on a gentleman of your... persuasion. Now, if you'll excuse me..." The besotted, backwater boy merely grinned at her as she lifted her drink, politely scooting past him.

"You sure got a pretty mouth."

"Charmed. I'm sure." Mari, for that was the woman's name, slunk deeper into the bar, spying her siblings by the saloons jukebox, twisting and shimmying with each other to the old=timey music. As she approached, Kouji, for that was her brother's name, held out a hand, twirling her around to the melody, stealing a sip from her drink as she laughed.

The three siblings tripped along to the music elegantly, sharing drinks and jokes, chuckling the night away in their tight triad. They shone in the dark of the bar, the air of the three mysterious blondes light with mirth, a happy shared secret. They left with the first light of the sun, leaning on each other as they sang their way back to their ship, the beautiful, blue collector's piece, the _Osiris_.

_I don't care, I'm still free You can't take the sky from me._

Su, for that was the third sibling's name, skipped up the gangplank, punching in the pass code to the console, her voice humming the tones of the keys as the door hissed open, welcoming the three siblings. Laika, for that was their dog's name, charged down after them, yapping her joy as the family Helden returned home, the three still laughing as the door closed behind them.

Su and Kouji charged through the ship, the former seeking the engine rooms, the latter seeking his bed after giving Mari a kiss on the cheek, voices trailing behind them as they disappeared down the hallways. Mari watched them go, making her way to the bridge, Laika padding silently at her knee, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

She fell into the pilot's chair, not as well-loved as the one before, but there was time for that still. Her fingers danced over the console, urging it to gentle life as _Osiris_ hummed quietly under her, his screens flashing the phrase 'Genrou Lives' in messy scrawl at her as they flickered to life. A little joke left for them deep in the core of the ship's wiring, dressed with the image of a wide smile.

A reminder, so they would never forget.

The ship lifted off effortlessly, tucking its landing gear as it left the planet's surface, racing toward the stars. Mari sat back, reaching for a small bowl secured to the console next to a faded, swaying hula doll, plucking a ripe tomato from it, her teeth sinking into the fruit with a smile as Osiris broke atmo, the stars coming into dazzling view across the atmoscreen. The captain sat contemplating them, her muddy boots crossed on the console before her as she serenaded them softly.

There are things in the 'verse you could buy.

_"Take my love."_ You could buy a ship.

_"Take my land."_ You could buy a garden.

_"Take me where I cannot stand."_ You could buy a crew, if you needed one.

_"I don't care. I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me."_ You could buy new hair, new skin, free of the marks of the past. Except the ones you chose to keep. You could even buy a new life, if you had the people to show you how.

_"Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't coming back."_ They had bought all these things and more, paid with crumpled bills and gallons of their blood, sweat, and tears. With the blood of their friends and lovers. With dark nights and lost sleep and stolen secrets. With traded stories and bottles of whiskey and borrowed hats. With pounds of flesh and pieces of their hearts. Paid all of that and more, only to find that the thing that they wanted, needed, most couldn't be bought.

It had to be earned. And they finally had.

Home. A family. A place in the 'verse to call their own.

Freedom.

_"You can't take the sky from me."_

* * *

Music: Near Death Experience Experience – Andrew Bird


End file.
